


Darkness with Light

by Sulpicius



Series: Dark Skies and Dragonfire [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Banter, Dawnguard, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Retelling of Dawnguard, Romance, Slow Burn, The Dragonborn is actually a mage for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:27:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 185,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24028132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sulpicius/pseuds/Sulpicius
Summary: A young mage from the College of Winterhold inadvertently and most unwillingly finds himself involved in an ancient vampire prophecy about the end of the world. He and the pureblood vampire Serana form an uneasy alliance to search out and stop the prophecy - if they can pretend to trust each other long enough to do what must be done.Part 1 of "Dark Skies and Dragonfire," dealing with the events of Dawnguard. Part 2, "Black Wings Unfurled," is now up and will cover the main quest arcs. Later, Part 3 will deal with the events of Dragonborn.Lore-friendly, but with lots of world-building.
Relationships: Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Serana, Male Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Serana, Serana (Elder Scrolls)/Original Character(s)
Series: Dark Skies and Dragonfire [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975708
Comments: 525
Kudos: 377





	1. Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes, first time I've actually posted one of these!
> 
> I wanted to do something with Serana, who is one of the most well-rounded and developed character in the canon Elder Scrolls universe, something to show her as both a confident badass who doesn't need anyone and at the same time as a bit vulnerable and conflicted. And I wanted to do something where the Dragonborn is (1) an actual mage, who spends most of his time doing mage things, and (2) doesn't have godlike power right from the start, and is in fact of constant danger of getting his teeth kicked in by enemies stronger than him (because squishy mage). And then I wanted them to have a lot of sarcastic banter, and at the same time a relationship based on the slow growth of trust.
> 
> Influenced by StoriesFromTheWasteland's "The Dragonborn Legacy" and PinguinoSentado's "Nightfall", which if you haven't read you absolutely must go do so.

Darkness.

She was aware of nothing but darkness and silence. After ages and ages – or perhaps a few seconds – she dimly realized that she _was_ aware of the darkness. Next the smells came to her, faint as imagination, but slowly becoming more real: two of her own kind, that oily ash-smell... and a mortal.

A mortal. With blood. How long had it been?

There was a sound of stone grinding on stone, and she turned her face away from the sudden light. She started to totter forwards and tried to catch herself, but her legs refused to balance and she was falling – but a pair of hands grabbed her shoulders, and brought her down to her knees gently. The scent of blood came to her again, and she looked towards it, nuzzled against it; the hands suddenly left her, and she was aware of someone standing erect and backing away hurriedly.

“I... what...” she mumbled, and staggered to her feet.

Before her there was indeed a mortal. And he was bleeding: his right hand was covered with blood. Her hunger screamed at her, but slowly she forced her mind to take in more detail. About her own height or a little less, young rather than old, fair, human but with somewhat pointed features, wearing robes, with a sheathed sword... He was standing in a casual-seeming stance, but she noticed that his left hand, held at his side as if relaxed, was making a warding gesture. Mage. Fast heartbeat – fear?

“Where is... _who sent you?_ ” she demanded, and her wavering voice was suddenly firm on the last words.

“No one sent me,” he said. His voice was soft, but the pronunciation was definitely foreign. Not a Nord. Breton?

“I don't believe you,” she said. “Who are you working for? Are you one of my father's little acolytes?” She dropped to a fighting stance, and red light gathered in her right hand. He took a step back, left hand forwards, and she was pleased to hear his heart speed up.

“No one sent me here,” he said again. She knew he was afraid, but his voice was still outwardly calm. She felt the magic gathering around his hands, but still he made no hostile move. “I have no idea who your father is, but believe me, I'm sure I wouldn't like him any more than you do. I don't work _for_ anyone, but I was working _with_ the Vigilants of Stendarr, and I was just here for those two.”

He gestured behind him. She kept her stance, facing him warily, but let her eyes wander around the cavern. Quickly she noticed the two of her own kind she had smelled, their bodies lying some distance behind the stranger. They were charred almost black.

“A vampire-hunter, then?”

“Not exactly. But for them I made an exception.”

Neither spoke for some time, but they stayed facing one another. She had the sense that he was examining her, sizing her up. Whatever he said, he didn't look like a friend. But, curiously, he also wasn't acting like someone who intended to fight.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, what?”

“You must be new to this, so I'll explain it for you,” she said, and put on a grin she did not feel. She gestured to herself, then to him. “ _I_ am a vampire. _You_ are a vampire hunter. What happens next is, you attack me, and then I get to have a little snack.”

He paled slightly, but when he spoke his voice was still light. “I told you, I'm not a vampire-hunter. Well, yes, granted,” he said, when she looked pointedly at the charred remains of the other two, “most vampires I've met I ended up killing, but it's a pretty small sample size, and they were all trying to kill me first. You are currently not doing that. It's kind of a new experience for me, to be honest, and I'd like to see where it goes; but not as much as I'd like us both to go our separate ways and pretend this never happened.”

She almost smiled at that. She relaxed slightly, and the energy gathering in her hand dispersed. In all likelihood she'd end up having to kill this mortal, but he clearly wasn't going to attack her imminently. And he was afraid of her, however he tried to hide it, so she didn't need to worry about him overmuch. Besides, at the moment her first priority had to be information and answers. She let more of her attention wander to her surroundings, and started looking around the cavern.

He noticed her eyes sweeping over the age-worn stone, the crumbling pillars and moss-overgrown walls. Her face grew increasingly confused, and the confusion deepened ever more to worry, and the beginnings of panic.

“I probably shouldn't ask,” he said. “You know, in case you remember I'm here and decide to eat me. But... are you all right?”

“Yes. Of course. Probably.” Her eyes still scanned her surroundings. “I know this will sound like a stupid question, but what's the date?”

“The 31st of Frostfall.”

“And the year?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Year 200 of the Fourth Era.”

“The... _Fourth_ Era.” It wasn't a question. Her face fell, and sudden anxiety showed in her eyes. “That's... probably not good. Tell me, who's the High King of Skyrim?”

“That's a little up for debate,” he replied, confused. Who dated according to the High Kings anymore? This whole situation was surreal. “Currently, Torygg of Solitude wears the crown, but a large section of the Nord population supports Jarl Ulfric of Windhelm. They think Torygg is too friendly to the Dunmer and even allege he's a puppet of the Empire, but –”

“Empire?” Her eyes went wide. “What Empire?”

“The... Empire. From Cyrodiil. Founded by Talos of Atmora, who reigned as Tiber Septim. From the sands of Elsweyr to the snows of Skyrim, from High Rock to Morrowind. The Empire.”

“Cyrodiil's the seat of an empire?”

She simply stared, at nothing in particular. He thought he could walk away and she would never notice.

Instead, as it so often did, curiosity got the better of him. “So... I can't help but notice you have an Elder Scroll.”

She started, as if realizing where she was again. She felt over her shoulder at the large cylinder strapped to her back. Still there. Of course the blasted thing would still be there.

“It's mine,” she said quickly.

He raised his hands apologetically. “Of course. I can't read the things anyway. But why do you have it? And for that matter, why were you sealed away at the bottom of this gods-forsaken cave, with – and I want to emphasize this – _an Elder Scroll_?”

Her expression softened slightly. “It's... complicated. And I'm not sure I can trust you.”

He looked amused by that.

“Look,” she continued, “you probably won't like this, but... I may need your help.” Damn it. Not a time to be proud. “Something – I don't know how long I've been down here, but something definitely went wrong, and I don't know what the world outside is like right now. But if you help me get back to my family's home so I can find out what's going on, and you don't betray me on the way, I'll tell you more of the story.”

He considered that a moment. “I help you back to your family home. Presumably they're vampires too. So we get there, you tell me the story, and then they kill me. You've kept your word, technically, and I'm dinner.”

“Paranoid much?”

“I like living.”

She shook her head, smiling. “It's overrated, you know. But fine, I promise you, I won't attack you, and I'll do everything I can to keep you safe if others try to hurt you. If you make the same promise.”

He only hesitated a moment. The temptation was too great. “Agreed. I will take no hostile action against you, nor allow others to do so, until we get you home, and you've told me what's going on, and I've left safely.”

She nodded, and they both relaxed. “I'm Serana,” she said.

“Alexien. It's a pleasure.”

“At least you're polite,” Serana smiled. “Most mortals aren't. So, do you know a way out of here?”

Alexien pointed back over his shoulder. “That's the way I came, but I'd rather not go back that way, if it's all the same to you. There was a... bit of an accident. Random spell caused a cave-in. Rather gruesome, bits of draugr everywhere.”

She sighed and gestured behind her; he could just make out a path leading to some stairs. “There should be another exit this way, it's the way I came in. At least, I think it is. It's... been a while, and everything looks different.” She looked at him. “By the way, do you want to do something about that bleeding?”

He raised his right hand. The sleeve was covered with blood, but there was no wound. “Already healed. Afraid I can't do anything about the stains. Will that be a problem?”

Her hunger surged, but she forced it down. “No. You're a healer, then?”

“A mage. But Restoration is undervalued in Skyrim.”

She nodded absently. Neither moved. “So,” she started, “would you like to be a gentleman and lead the way?”

“No offense,” he said, “but, all things considered, I would prefer not to have you behind me. I think you're trustworthy and all, but I'd rather be rude than dead.”

“And no offense,” she said, “but I'd rather not have you behind me either. Side by side, then?”

He nodded and moved up beside her, and they turned together and started along the path. They walked on awkwardly for a while, each trying to keep an eye on the other without falling behind or going ahead. Suddenly Serana stopped and put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back, and felt a surge of satisfaction when his heart jumped again.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

She pointed at an alcove beside the stairwell ahead. “Gargoyle ahead.”

He strained his eyes to see. She had to remember he was all but blind down here. “Yes?”

“It'll come alive and attack when we get closer.”

“Really?” He sounded fascinated. “That I haven't seen before. It's stone, though, so I assume it's hard to take down. What do you advise?”

“Massive blunt force trauma.”

“Simple enough.” He shook out his sleeves and started advancing. “I'll distract it, if you cover me.”

She nodded, but thought, unless he was a lot faster than he looked, she was soon going to be cleaning bloody pieces of wizard off the floor.

Alexien crept forwards cautiously, noting uncomfortably that he had left the vampire behind him with a clear shot right at his back; but just as she had predicted, when he was only a few steps from the statue it exploded into movement and launched itself at him. It was at least twice his height and many times his weight, and unfairly fast for something that size, with wickedly sharp claws aimed, of course, at his throat.

He threw forward both hands and shot a spike of ice at it, and it stumbled – only for a moment, but long enough for him to leap to the side and get out of the way of any spells Serana might throw. It noticed her and was briefly undecided who to tear to pieces first, but Alexien launched at it another projectile of ice that shattered on the side of its face, and it faced him squarely and struck out at him, putting all its weight into a crushing blow.

Serana drew power and watched, with some annoyance, as the creature reared back to obliterate her new traveling companion. And they'd just met, too. But just before the blow landed, she saw him make that same warding gesture and throw his left hand forwards, and a blue-white shield appeared in front of him. The stone claw struck it and recoiled; the shield held, and Alexien tottered but kept to his feet, otherwise unharmed, and threw another blast of ice. Maybe he wasn't a complete pushover after all.

Her own spells connected a moment later, more focused from the additional time she'd had to concentrate, and a pair of ice spears with points hardened steel-sharp struck and went _through_ the gargoyle's solid stone body.

Unfortunately that only seemed to infuriate it, and it turned towards Serana and charged in her direction.

Alexien leapt up behind it, pointing a hand at a chunk of a collapsed pillar lying on the floor, then at the thing's back, and the stone projectile shot forwards and struck with a crash like thunder. A crack opened from the gargoyle's shoulders down to its side. It spun around to face him again, and that moment's indecision finished it: another ice spear suddenly pierced it from behind and projected out its neck, and in a moment it had fallen to pieces on the floor.

Serana waltzed forwards, grinning at the impressed look he shot in her direction. He nodded at her and muttered “Thanks,” then knelt down and started examining the remains of the gargoyle.

“They're my mother's,” Serana said, answering his unasked question. “She kind of has a thing for magical constructs. I mean – not a _thing_ , she just finds them interesting. She always favored Conjuration.”

Alexien nodded absently, feeling around through the pile of rubble.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“No, I just find it interesting as well,” he said. He found a gem amid the fragments of stone, lifted it up to the light for a moment, and put it in his pocket. “I've never seen autokinetic stone before. Are they sentient or just automatons?”

She rolled her eyes. “Great, another conjurer. I'm sure you and my mother will get along splendidly.”

“It's not really my subject.” He stood up. “I just find the theory fascinating sometimes. And the College would want me to make a record of something like this.”

“The College – Winterhold?”

“The same. I'm a magister there. Though I'm _supposed_ to be out in Skyrim cataloguing interesting new discoveries, not meeting interesting new women in ancient crypts, so they might be a little disappointed in me.”

“I'm not exactly 'new.'”

“But you do think you're interesting?”

She rolled her eyes again, exaggerated enough to be sure he'd notice, and turned and lead the way up the stairs. “You travel around Skyrim a lot, then?”

“About half the time. When I'm not hunched over a book at the College library, yes, I'm out traveling through Skyrim. A couple of times down to Cyrodiil. Morrowind isn't very welcoming right now, and I try to avoid High Rock.”

“This... is the farthest from home I've ever been,” Serana muttered, mostly to herself. She suddenly noticed Alexien looking at her quizzically, and her brain kicked her for giving away information about herself.

“You prefer a more... domestic life, then? Er, that is –”

“We just... no, not really, but we weren't exactly encouraged to wander far,” she said, ignoring him. “My father felt it wasn't safe. Among other things.”

“Can't argue with that,” muttered Alexien. They continued up the stairs a while. “So where's this family home I've agreed to take you to?”

“On the coast, northwest of Solitude. I assume Solitude is still there?”

“Still there. Not too far, then; maybe a week on the road, unless we're very unlucky. Will sunlight be a problem?”

“Not as long as I'm well fed,” she smirked at him.

He missed a step and stumbled a bit, but didn't answer.

“Problem?” she asked sweetly.

“Not at all. Just have to remind myself you'll probably be the quite literal death of me,” he said brightly. They came to a landing with a doorway into another series of rooms. “At least I'll die in entertaining company. Wait here a second.”

“Why?”

He didn't answer, instead raising his right hand. She felt him channel power; but for a moment there was no observable effect, until suddenly she felt something wash over her, an odd tingling sensation that made her feel very visible and out in the open, and she fought a passing desire to hide in a hole.

“What was _that_?”

“Detect Undead. Sorry about that. But there are draugr up ahead. Quite a number of them.”

“They were always so gullible when I was a girl,” she reminisced.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, now they're more into murder first, and not asking any questions later. How are you with fire?”

“Fine, as long as you point it away from me. How do you want to do this?”

“We go in and re-kill everything that moves.”

“A brilliant plan. Subtle. I like it.”

“Yes, my tactical genius is famous across Tamriel.” He drew his sword. “Ladies first this time, I think.”

Serana strode confidently through the doorway, and found herself in a cavern so enormous it could contain a small castle. The ceiling stretched into shadow overhead, and the floor sloped down in terraces to a central arena. She frowned; this didn't look familiar – had she been brought through here unconscious? Blindfolded? Try as she might, she just couldn't remember.

The thought didn't disturb her long; she was soon distracted by about a dozen humanoid forms rising from niches in the wall, silhouetted against the darkness but with pinpoint-eyes burning, clutching weapons. She barely had time to think _No, they don't look like the draugr I remember at all_ , before they rushed her.

Too slow. She grinned and let them swing clumsily at her for a moment, dodging and weaving between their blows, like she was remembering a forgotten dance. Suddenly she lashed out with her bare hands, no magic, and tore one apart by main strength, just to feel the joy of her own body's power. Then she summoned ice and lightning and laid waste all around her.

She glanced over to see how her new mageling was faring. Alexien was also fighting several at once, not as elegantly as her, not as fast, but competently enough. Any that tried to keep their distance, he blasted with fire; any that ventured close, his sword cut through. He was no master bladesman by any means, but one didn't have to be to lop off bits of corpses. Occasionally he blocked a strike with his sword, and threw forward his left hand to set flame to his opponent with a touch. He might make a decent ally after all.

Another draugr swung an axe at her and she refocused her attention, pirouetting aside away from the blow, then she thrust both hands forward, and with an effort of will froze the creature into solid ice.

There was a flash of white light behind her, hot and stinging like the sun on a mountain top, and Serana felt a sudden stab of panic that quickly faded. She turned and saw Alexien surrounded; but the draugr were now running _away_ from him. They went down in flame.

He was breathing hard, holding his sword a little limp, but trying not to let her notice. Adorable. He turned to face her, and she imagined herself as he would see her, standing unhurt and untired amid the broken and burnt pieces of her enemies around her. She smiled innocently at him.

His eyes went wide, and he threw a hand forward and sent a thunderbolt directly at her chest.

She dodged lazily, a little disappointed, not at the betrayal, but at its clumsiness – until she heard a _thud-hiss_ behind her, and turned to see one final draugr sinking to the floor.

She turned to stare back at Alexien as a smile spread across his face. “Your aim is shit,” she said.

“I knew you'd move.”

“And if I hadn't, you'd be down one unwanted traveling companion, so you win either way.”

“Now who's paranoid?”

“I like not-living.”

He started to reply – but he heard a series of pounding steps behind him, and turned to see the most hulking monstrosity of a corpse he had ever seen or heard of. It was easily a head taller than him, and twice as broad – _Unfair_ , he thought again – and wielded a greatsword, midnight-black and cruel. He tossed his own sword aside, not wanting to come to hand-to-hand with this monster, and started channeling power through both hands; but right as it charged, it opened its mouth and _spoke_ , spoke words almost human, in a voice weak and raspy with age that somehow still echoed all around him, reverberating in his mind; and suddenly he was on his back, looking up at the great blade coming down at him.

Serana suddenly stood over him, and she grabbed the swinging blade in her bare hands, twisted to the side, and sent it clattering across the floor.

The draugr, apparently thinking weapons superfluous, without hesitation opened its jaws inhumanly wide and fell upon Serana, fastening its age-black teeth over her collarbone. She screamed.

From the floor, Alexien conjured a block of ice and launched it at the thing's abdomen; the impact tore it backwards, and Serana struck it in the face, forcing it back another half-step. Then they both hit it with charged lightning, point-blank; and for a moment he was blinded by the light, his ears ringing from the thunderclap.

“Dagon take them!” he heard Serana cursing.

He scrambled to his feet and forced his eyes to open. Serana was twisting her head aside, one hand gingerly feeling her mangled neck and shoulder. Her blood was black. There was a lot of it.

“Here,” he said hesitatingly, reaching a hand forwards and holding it over her injury, “let me –”

“No, wait –”

His hand glowed eerie-red, not the usual golden light of healing, and she felt a sudden sting; but the burning ache started to fade. She glanced down again and saw the wound closing. She looked at him curiously, but his eyes were closed in concentration.

After a moment the wound had covered over completely, and Alexien opened his eyes to see her staring at him. He withdrew his hand awkwardly.

“You know how to heal undead?” she asked. “Are you a necromancer?”

“Arkay, no,” he said, with a grimace. “But the theory's simple enough. It's just anti-healing. You take a perfectly normal healing spell and sort of... reverse it, invert the energy pattern. From what I've read, anyway.”

“From what you've read?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “You just decided to try out, on me, a spell you've never cast before, and blindly trusted it wouldn't backfire horribly, because you read a book?”

“A couple of books. And it worked,” he said defensively.

Serana stretched her shoulder. “Yeah, I guess it did. Thanks. Just ask next time, if you please.”

She opened a pocket and pulled out a vial of red liquid, examined it for a moment, then, with a look of relief, twisted off the cap and downed the contents.

“Is that –?”

“You don't want to know,” she said.

Alexien nodded and went to pick up his sword. He sheathed it, but stood with a puzzled look on his face. Then, “Do you hear that?” he asked.

She listened. “I don't hear anything.”

“Maybe it's just my head still pounding from whatever that thing shouted at me _,_ but I swear, there's a... a voice.”

“My hearing's better than yours, and I don't hear anything.”

“Well, that's... not good,” he said, frowning. But his eyes were locked on something over Serana's shoulder.

“Rule one of magic,” said Serana, looking at him with some concern. “Hearing voices other people can't is bad. Especially with undead all around.”

He nodded but didn't seem to really hear her. Eyes still focused over her shoulder, he slowly walked past her, up to a wall. He ran a hand over it, and suddenly Serana noticed that it was covered with irregular scratches, regularly spaced. Writing?

“What's it say?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I have no idea,” he answered, his hand still tracing over the patterns. It stopped over one symbol. “But this word means _vigor_. No, _stamina_.”

“How do you know?”

“I...” He frowned. “I'm not sure. I just know it. Like I know my own name.”

She shivered slightly. “Can you tell what language it is?”

He only shook his head, hand still resting over that same word. “It doesn't _feel_ like any kind of dark magic I've ever heard of,” he muttered to himself.

“Come on,” Serana called, after another pause, “let's get out of here.”

For several seconds Alexien didn't react. Finally he stirred. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and pulled away. “Just... keep an eye on me, will you?”

She only nodded, and they walked together towards a doorway on the opposite wall.

“Thank you,” he said suddenly. “For the part where you saved my life, I mean. Sorry, I should have said that sooner.”

“It's okay,” she said. “You were a little distracted by the unseen magic slowly spreading its tendrils into your mind and driving you to eventual insanity. I understand.”

“Will traveling with you always be this cheerful?”

“Most of the time. But don't worry, there will be moments enough of unbridled terror to keep you from getting bored.”

He actually chuckled at that.

After a moment, Serana added, “You're welcome.”


	2. Interlude

They emerged from the cave onto the northern slope of a mountain overlooking Dawnstar, and it was night. The breeze was cold and crisp, fragrant with pine, and the stars were bright overhead. Serana breathed deeply, tasting the night air, smelling on it the myriad scents of life and activity and freedom, and sighed with pleasure.

She turned to Alexien. “What a beautiful night,” she said happily.

He nodded, pointing overhead. “The Tower is clear tonight. But it's on the wane; tomorrow evening we should see the Atronach take its place.”

“How prosaic of you. Where's the poetry in your soul?”

“Strangled in the cradle. All the memorization we do as students kills it, leaving the prosaic husk you see before you.”

She smiled, and breathed deeply again the clear air. “I don't care, I'm in too good a mood. I've been asleep for – only Hermaeus Mora knows how long, and I say it's a beautiful night, and the stars are sublime, and the trees smell overwhelmingly, refreshingly _real_ , and I won't let your witty nonsense ruin it.”

“I can't help it, I'm a Breton. Witty nonsense is our thing. Ask any Nord.” He stopped and sat down on the stump of a tree. “Mind if we rest for a bit?”

“Tired?”

“Exhausted, but that's not it. Now that we're out of there, I think we should discuss how this is going to go. The actual logistics of traveling together, I mean.”

She moved nearer, and stood facing him. It was uncanny, how unnaturally _still_ she could stay, moving not a muscle, not a hair, not tottering in the breeze, not even blinking. No human could stand like that.

“Well,” he said, pushing the thought away, “I usually sleep at night and travel during the day, but I imagine you might have other preferences.”

“Exactly the opposite,” said Serana, “but I'll yield to you.”

“The sun won't be a problem?”

It would, but she didn't want to say so. “I can handle it.”

“Right,” he said, sounding unconvinced. “And I can eat at any inns we pass –”

“So can I.”

“– but, er,” he stumbled, “how are you on needing to feed?”

“I can handle that too,” she said, smiling innocently at him.

“I'm trying to be serious.”

“So am I. Don't worry about it. My meals usually find me. Sometimes they even agree to follow me around.”

“You know, I'm starting to think you just enjoy messing with me because it's funny. Are you even a real vampire?”

“I can prove it to you,” she said, with that same innocent smile.

He raised his hands in mock-surrender. “No proof needed. But I'm trying to be prosaic and serious here, and you're ruining it.”

She sighed. “You're no fun. But don't worry about me; I'll see to myself. The potion you saw me take will last me a couple of days, and after that, I'm sure I'll find something on the road.”

“And... sorry to ask, but will that –”

“It won't necessarily kill anyone,” she interrupted. “You humans have _a lot_ of blood, and I can only drink so much.”

“And –” he started again.

“And it won't necessarily turn anyone either.”

He looked skeptical.

“Look,” she said, “if every time a vampire fed it created another vampire, we would expand exponentially every night and in a year Tamriel would be nothing but vampires. There's more to it than that. Don't worry about the details, you really don't want to know. Happy? Have I sated your curiosity? Can we continue on and enjoy this wonderful evening now?”

“Wait,” he said, in mock confusion, “how else do you enjoy wonderful evenings except by asking questions to sate your curiosity?”

She rolled her eyes. “This is going to be a long week, isn't it?”

He smirked, got up, and motioned to her to follow. “Come on, there's an inn this way on the road towards Solitude, it'll be a good place to stop for what's left of the night.”

As they walked away, he was thinking on their agreement, and what in the world had possessed him to consent to it. Suddenly he realized with a jolt that, although she had been trying to make a joke of it, at no point had she actually promised that she wouldn't feed on _him_.

Serana thought she could tell, from how his heart skipped a beat, the exact moment the thought occurred to him. She grinned inwardly. It _was_ fun messing with him.

“I know what you're thinking,” she said. “Don't worry, I would never do that to you. Unless you ask nicely.”

He glanced back at her, and seemed torn whether to reply seriously or with another joke. He ended up compromising: “If you were really planning to lure me to a dark alley and drain my blood,” he said, “I don't think you'd joke about it quite so often. That, or you're just really bad at this whole 'being a vampire' thing.”

“That,” she returned, smiling, “or I've found that joking about the exact thing I plan to do is the best way to put too-clever-by-half wizards off their guard.”

“You're right, this _is_ going to be a long week.”

Serana didn't answer, but kept smiling as they walked through the starlit forest. It was so divinely blessed simply to be out, outside that crypt, outside the castle, in more or less amusing company, wandering the wide open spaces of Tamriel, going she knew not exactly where, but going.

“This inn,” she asked suddenly. “You've been there before? On your travels?”

“A couple of times. There aren't many safe roads in this area of Skyrim. Well, there aren't _any_ safe roads in this area of Skyrim, but this inn is along one slightly less dangerous. It sometimes sees Imperial patrols from Solitude or Morthal.”

“So they know you there?” she asked. “Enough, say, to help you against an evil vampire girl you've had the misfortune to fall in with?”

“Like Oblivion,” he laughed. “The Nords around here aren't likely to help a mage, and worse a Breton mage, against a mudcrab. If a Dremora killed me right in front of them they'd just shrug and say, 'Well, serves him right, magicking around all unnatural-like.'”

“You don't seem to like the locals much, considering you're not from here and moved here voluntarily.”

“I like the College. It's just a shame it's in Skyrim.”

“So you left High Rock to go to Winterhold?”

“Not... exactly,” he said, hesitating. “I left High Rock to be away from High Rock. It just so happened Skyrim was next door, and Skyrim has Winterhold. I don't actually hate Skyrim all that much. The Nords are a bit distant with foreigners and magic-users, and magic-using foreigners, but they're hospitable enough when they know you're not going to swallow their grandmother's soul or something. And the fact that the province is a bit on the _untamed_ side means I get to adventure around, instead of just sitting in a wizard's tower in Wayrest.”

Ah, so he was from Wayrest. “You described it as _cataloguing_ for the College. So you're a traveling librarian or something?”

“Feels like it sometimes. More like... a good-will ambassador. The College isn't exactly a beloved institution in Skyrim, not since the Oblivion Crisis –”

“The what?”

“Right, sorry, I forgot. Short version: about 200 years ago, magic-using foreigners tore open a portal to Oblivion, Mehrunes Dagon invaded Tamriel, general unpleasantness ensued.”

“I can't tell if you're joking,” she said slowly.

“Then the emperor's heir turned into the dragon-embodiment of Akatosh, God of Time, and duelled the Prince of Destruction in the middle of the Imperial City.”

“Now I know you're making it up.”

“All true, actually,” he said. Serana raised an eyebrow. “I'll lend you Praxis Sarcorum's history. Anyway, traveling. Some of the masters at the College thought it would be a good idea to send someone around the holds, stop in towns in villages, show the people a mage who's not obviously evil, do some basic healing spells or help with other magical problems they may have. If, during my visit, someone has an old manuscript or artifact that might interest Winterhold and that they might like to exchange for gold, all the better.”

“So you're a peddler,” she said with a smirk.

He shrugged. “I get to see new parts of Tamriel, talk to new people, some of whom are sometimes interesting, practice my Restoration and be thanked for it, and occasionally break a curse or fight off a bandit raid or save someone from draugr. And at the end of it, if all goes well, I get a stack of books to read and artifacts to study.”

“That is the most boring way you could possibly have ended that sentence,” she said; but she was laughing.

They walked on. “Seeing new parts of Tamriel appeals to you, I take it?” he asked.

“I'd settle for seeing old parts of Tamriel,” she said. “I've lived in Haafingar almost my entire life, and I've never even been to Solitude.”

“Why not?”

Serana shook her head sadly. _Because I'm a vampire, you dolt_. “But when I was younger, sometimes, on clear days, we could just see the walls of Solitude from the top of – of the mountains by our home.” She had almost said _from the top of the castle_. For some reason she didn't want him to know that. “I'd stare at it for hours, wondering if it was like what I imagined from the stories I read. I –” She cut herself off suddenly. She shouldn't be telling so much.

She knew he was looking at her, but refused to meet his gaze.

“Well,” came his voice after a moment, “we'll be passing near Solitude anyway. I don't see any reason we shouldn't stop by.”

She looked up quickly. “Are you sure that's a good idea?”

 _No_ , Alexien's brain screamed at him, _she's a vampire_. “Of course.”

“And while we're on the subject, are you sure it's a good idea we stay at an inn? With people? What if someone recognizes what I am?”

“They won't. You look very... human.”

“You recognized me right away.”

“It was kind of obvious in context. We were in an ancient crypt, surrounded by undead, and you hadn't even woken up before you were sniffing at the blood on my sleeve.”

That... was a little embarrassing. She looked away.

“Besides,” he added a second later, more slowly, “if anyone does recognize you, I guess I am obligated by our agreement to protect you.”

She looked up.

“Not that you need it,” he added in a hurry.

A grin spread across her face. “Aww, what a good thrall you're turning out to be.”

“Don't even joke.”

“Okay, fine, you're a bad thrall.”

“If I were your thrall, I don't think I could want to put a stake through your heart quite this badly.” He started and stared at her; had that been too much? “I mean –”

She grinned at him. “You're so adorable, I just want to eat you all up.”

He made a show of heaving a big sigh, but was smiling inwardly. On reflection, he realized that was probably a bad sign.

* * *

They arrived at the road some time later, and followed it west a short distance. When they saw the lights of the inn, Alexien stopped, looked around, and pulled his hood up over his head.

“I don't think anyone will recognize you,” he said, “but just to be safe, keep your hood up until we're alone.”

“Alone, huh?”

“I'll do the same so it doesn't look suspicious, we'll just be a couple of weird mages,” he went on, as if she hadn't spoken. “Or... do you think I'm being paranoid and that's overkill?”

“It's been a while since I've associated freely with mortals, but it's possible. Tonight, though...” her voice trailed off. Waking up an unknown number of centuries after her own time, she realized, had left her feeling wrong-footed, vulnerable. She wanted to stay covered up. Going into a public space with strangers sounded less appealing by the moment. She pulled her hood up and tried to hide her face. “Paranoid sounds good tonight.”

“Are you all right?”

 _No_. “Yeah. But thanks for asking.”

They walked into the inn. Serana was immediately assaulted by the manifold smells and noises, the woodfire and smoke, the roasting meat, spilled ale, old apples, and people, people old and young, washed and unwashed, men and women, Nord and Imperial and other, talking low or laughing or singing or calling for more mead. She shook her head and focused. There was a long central hearth, with a slow fire, with spitted meats and pots cooking in it; around the walls were common tables with benches, where about a dozen figures were sitting and conversing. In one corner a bard was singing a raucous song, which included the line “You talk and you lie and you drink all our mead,” and several of the drunker patrons were attempting to sing along. Serana would normally have smiled – all these people so alive, and all in their own different ways – but now she pulled her hood lower over her face.

Alexien walked up to the innkeep and passed him a few coins from a pocket that looked none too full. Oh right, Serana thought, money; she had forgotten about money. The man asked him something, and Alexien glanced back at Serana once, then said something in reply. He spoke low, but Serana thought he was ordering food. He turned back to Serana, smiled, and motioned for her to follow him. They sat down on benches in a corner, as far from the rest of the crowds as they could be.

“I ordered wine and some stew,” said Alexien as they sat down. She noticed he sat with his back to the room, leaving her a seat in the corner with her back to the wall, where she could keep an eye on everyone else. Was that intentional? Had she been so obvious? “I don't know if you can – if you're hungry or thirsty.”

But Serana knew that's not what he'd been going to say. “We don't need to. But I can drink wine. And besides,” she added after a moment, “it might look suspicious otherwise.”

They sat for a while. Serana slowly grew more used to the bustle. A barmaid came by and plopped a flagon of wine and two clay cups down in front of them, with two bowls of food, and left without a word. Serana noticed she had an uncomfortable look on her face and had been eager to get away from them, and felt exposed again and unwelcome – but then realized the discomfort had been aimed at Alexien.

“I told you: mages,” he said. He politely poured her wine before filling his own cup, then drank a deep draught.

“And do I not look enough like a dangerous mage?” Serana asked. She took a small sip. It wasn't bad. “I'm hurt.”

“Don't worry, if you were here alone you'd get all the cold disrespect you could ever want. But that girl was on duty last time I was here, and she saw me casting.”

“Against what? A skeever invasion in the basement?”

“I... politely asked a couple of patrons to leave when they were getting handsy and violent. Illusion. If I'd drawn my sword or just punched them – but you know, messing with people's minds, I'm not surprised she's uneasy.”

“A bit ungrateful, isn't it?”

Alexien shrugged. “I don't blame her, this time. I could just as easily use Illusion on her and... _persuade_ her to do whatever I wanted, and she knows it; and the only thing stopping me is that I would never do that, which she doesn't know. Truth be told, I should probably have had her taste my wine.” He stared down at his wine, shrugged, and took another drink.

They sat in silence for a while. Alexien took a few bites of his food; Serana swirled the spoon around absent-mindedly.

Eventually, he pushed his bowl away. “Sorry to be bad company tonight, but it's getting late,” he said. “Your room is there, and mine is over here,” and he pointed them out.

She nodded but didn't respond, and he got up and went into his room, bringing the wine.

 _What in Oblivion am I doing_? he thought. He looked at the bed, and yearned for sleep, but knew he was too tightly wound to rest yet, too much on his mind. He needed to relax. He sighed and sat at the room's small table, and started rummaging in his pack for a book.

He had only just started reading _Incident at Necrom_ , when there came a knock at his door, and before he had time to answer, Serana swept in, closing the door behind her.

She lowered her hood with a sheepish grin. “Well, now you have me alone,” she said.

He closed his book and gestured at a chair opposite him, and Serana sat down. Her face grew more serious. “Now that nothing is trying to kill us and we don't have to worry about being overheard,” she said, “I think there are some things we need to talk about.”

“What's on your mind?”

 _I need to know if I can trust you_ , Serana thought. “I need to know what you were doing in that crypt,” she said.

“Ah,” he said awkwardly. “And I suppose it's not enough of an answer that those two particular vampires killed some friends of mine and I was tracking them down?”

“I think there's more to it,” she said. “Who are the Vigilants of Stendarr? You said you were working with them.”

“Them... and a group called the Dawnguard,” said Alexien. “I guess I should tell you the whole story.”

“Good,” said Serana. “Dawnguard – I don't know them, but they don't sound like a group that would approve of your present company.”

“They wouldn't. They're vampire-hunters. And rather fanatical about it.”

“You said you're not a vampire-hunter.” There was a note of accusation in her voice.

“I'm not. As I said, I guess I should tell you the whole story.” He tried to put on a smile. “I only hope it doesn't damage this new-found friendship we're building here.”

“That depends on the story.”

“Yeah. Fair.” He filled his cup again and took a drink, and considered her.

She only stared. She was sitting very close, and he noticed her eyes for the first time: they were a burning amber, unmistakably non-human, but still would have been beautiful if they weren't so eerie. But they didn't blink. Just stared into him. He quickly looked away; weren't there folk-stories about bad things happening if you looked into a vampire's eyes? He was suddenly very aware that, if she attacked him in close quarters like this, he wouldn't be quick enough to do anything before she ripped his skull off his spine.

She had seemed sympathetic enough before, though. He might as well try being honest.

“Right. So, you already know how I travel around Skyrim. Peddling, you called it. Well, once you earn their trust, there are a lot of people, even among the most superstitious Nords, who have problems they'd love for you to magic away, especially if you don't charge what some of the healers do. Mostly I see broken bones, fevers; maybe someone asks me to bring rain, or banish the snow. Not that I can do that, but they're happy enough for any bit of Alteration that might help them survive this wretched climate.”

“You were going to tell me how you, who definitely aren't a vampire-hunter, were working with vampire-hunters to hunt vampires.”

“I'm getting to that. I was traveling around Riften a few months ago. Only, instead of people asking for rain charms and cures for the common cold, they started asking me, in hushed voices, for protection charms. Wards. Spells of turning. Apotropaic magic of whatever kind they could think of. When I inquired, the ones that weren't too terrified to speak talked of shadows, figures in the woods at night, with blazing eyes – and children missing in the morning.”

Serana shrugged, but her expression was troubled. “A rogue vampire. Sometimes they go... blood-crazed. It's not prudent for us to kill if it can be avoided; we usually try to avoid becoming the talk of the village like that.”

“This wasn't one village,” said Alexien. “All over the Rift, wherever I went, there were the same stories: shadows in the night – shadows, plural – and missing people. Husbands who went to bed with their wives, to find them gone in the morning. Mothers who woke to find their sons' beds empty. Neighbors who found whole families vanished.”

Serana said nothing to that.

“I'm not an expert on vampires. I did what I could, but I don't know if it actually helped anyone. Well, one day I was ready to leave Riften, and start heading west, to Whiterun. An old farmer approached me. He was trembling. He lived alone with his daughter on a farm just out of town, and the last several nights, he had seen _things_ in the woods. The previous night, he swore, he had seen its eyes, burning like no man or mer or animal, watching through the window. He just knew – and he shook as he was telling me this – that it would take his daughter next. Her name was Estrid, he said. He'd pay me anything, do anything, give me the whole farm if I wanted it, if I would just save her. He begged like I was the High King and Arkay and Akatosh rolled into one, not just some young college mage; but he had nowhere else to turn.”

“You agreed?”

“I agreed to do what I could. It was on my way to Whiterun anyway, I might as well accept his hospitality for the night and see for myself. Big selfless hero, that's me.”

He didn't say anything else for a moment, until Serana gestured for him to go on.

“So, I got to the farm a little while before dusk. He and his daughter treated me like royalty. Opened the best mead, brought out the biggest cheese. He tried to give me his own bed, but at least I refused that. Anyway, I looked around the house, put some basic wards on all the doors and windows. I examined the girl. That... I never told them this, but her mind had definitely been tampered with. I couldn't tell what, but something was off. Wrong.”

“It was trying to make her a thrall,” said Serana.

Alexien shivered. “I was afraid of that. Thanks for confirming. Well, after that I doubled up on the wards and got ready to stay up overnight. I decided, if a vampire was going to come, I didn't want to fight it indoors, so I hid outside. I'm not great at Illusion, but I had potions, and I could take my time. When it came it didn't see me.”

“What was it like?”

“It was... I'm sorry if I say anything offensive here, I don't exactly know what counts as rude, but... it was a monster. It wasn't like – like you, I guess. It might have been human, once, but that was long past. It wasn't a person.”

“Feral,” said Serana slowly. “That can happen, if the vampire has a weak mind and gets blood-starved. There's nothing to them but the hunger.”

He wondered how much he should tell her, of what he surmised. “That's what I thought,” he said, “but if it was feral, how did it have the presence of mind to start enthralling the girl? Wouldn't it just rend her to pieces?”

She bit her lip, but said nothing.

“Anyway. It went to the window and reached out a hand; my ward went off, and it jumped back. Maybe it could have broken through, but I decided not to give it a chance. I picked my moment and threw fire at it. Evidently being feral didn't make it oblivious, and it was _fast_ , and then I was in the open facing a slightly singed and really pissed off vampire. I won't bore you with the details; I won, obviously, but it was a near thing.”

“And so the brave hero vanquished the foul monster and saved the maiden.”

His mouth twitched. “If only life worked that way. But one dead vampire didn't mean they were safe. I told them to go to Riften for a while and gave them all the money I could spare. But I saw something bigger was going on, and I went to the Vigilants.”

“You've mentioned them a couple of times,” said Serana. “Who are they? Another group of vampire-hunters?”

“Not specifically. They were formed after the Oblivion Crisis to combat the influence of the Daedra. They're like... vigilante-priests. They hate the Daedra, but they're more than happy to swing their maces at anything they see preying upon the innocent, hardworking people of Skyrim. But I figured, if anyone had an idea why vampires were going on the rampage, they would.”

“And what did you find out?”

If she was still suspicious of him, he thought, at least her curiosity hid it well.

“Almost exactly nothing. I went to their Hall and talked with a few of the Vigilants, namely Tolan and Adalvald. They agreed something was going on, but didn't know any more than I did. But their leader, Carcette, asked me to stay and help out; they didn't get many fully trained wizards stopping by, and she thought we could share knowledge. And Tolan put me in touch with someone who might know more: the Dawnguard.”

Serana sighed. How many vigilante orders could there be in Skyrim anyway? “These are the fanatical vampire-hunters you mentioned?”

“Yeah. If it tells you anything of their character, their leader, Isran, had been a Vigilant, but they considered him too extreme and chucked him out.”

“He sounds lovely.”

“Oh, he was, I can tell you. So Tolan, Adalvald, and I went to pay him a visit. The Dawnguard have a fortress near Riften; I think it's technically over the border in Morrowind, actually. Isran wasn't exactly welcoming, but he changed his tune when he heard what we had to say. He'd been looking into the same issue himself, the growth of vampire attacks in the Rift. It was what had induced him to reform the Dawnguard.”

“So you, two Vigilants, and a fanatic too extreme for the Vigilants, went on a holy crusade.”

“It sounds much more exciting when you say it that way. Really, we spent a few weeks gathering information and tracking down leads. Finally we located a small coven in the mountains. Or what had been a small coven: they had started expanding, aggressively. They took everyone they could get as a thrall, and they were... turning people. As many and as fast as possible. They were building up for something.”

Serana cursed and muttered something under her breath. Alexien thought he caught the word _hark_ or _hearken;_ but she was talking to herself, and he didn't pry.

“So, we suited up and went to have a chat with them.”

“How many?” Serana asked suddenly.

“Eighteen vampires,” said Alexien, some bitterness in his tone. “I didn't count the thralls. Definitely more than we were prepared for or expecting. Say what you will about Isran – and I will – but when it came down to it, he knew his work, and he did it well. We wouldn't have made it out without him. Not all of us did. But in the end, we got them all.”

“And the attacks stopped?”

“The attacks stopped. Isran went back to his paranoid fortress of paranoia, and I went back to the Hall with the Vigilants. Carcette wanted to celebrate.” He stopped and took another deep drink of his wine. “That's when they hit us.”

Serana said nothing.

“This was two – no, three – nights ago. Adalvald had a theory about a nearby crypt – yours, it turns out – that he had gone to investigate. I was at the Hall with Tolan and the other rather tipsy Vigilants. They came a few hours before dawn.”

“How many this time?”

Alexien shook his head. “No idea. More than at the coven. It wasn't a battle, it was a massacre. I... really don't want to talk about the details.”

Serana nodded.

“Tolan and I, and a girl named Vori, fought our way out, but I don't think anyone else made it. When we looked back, the Hall was burning. He figured Adalvald had been on to something, and asked me to help rescue him, if possible. We sent Vori with a message to the Dawnguard, warning Isran to be on alert and telling him to expect refugees from the Vigilants, and we went to the cave Adalvald had disappeared to. He was right, they'd got there before us. They had a small army of thralls; Tolan took a spear in the neck, but I got through. I found Adalvald, with two vampires, near where I found you. They were torturing him.”

“What did they look like? Did you catch their names? What did they want?”

That was interesting: she wanted to know their names. So she thought she might know them.

They were nearing the end of the story, and mentally Alexien started preparing a defense, just in case. “No names. One was a Dunmer, one was a Nord woman, but I couldn't tell more than that. They wanted to know how much he knew, whether he understood what he'd found. The questions didn't make much sense to him; but now, of course, I know they were trying to find out what he knew about _you_.”

He watched her closely for a reaction. She gave nothing away. “Then what?” she asked.

“They killed him. I'd been too slow. I blew one to ashes before she knew I was there, then the Dunmer and I fought it out. And that's when I promised myself never again to get into a fair fight with a vampire if I could avoid it.”

“Smart.”

“You pretty much know the rest,” he said. “I killed him, found you, we left together, struck up this delightful friendship, and here we are.”

He watched her eyes. If she were going to attack, it would be soon.

For a long time, she didn't react at all. She seemed lost in thought, and looked out the window. Finally she muttered a soft _Damn it all_ and turned back to Alexien.

“I can't talk here,” she said, “but you're right, something much bigger is going on. I need to get back home. Our agreement still stands.” She glanced at his eyes. “If you want it to.”

He relaxed slightly. “You're not...?”

“I can tell you're not a vampire-murdering zealot, if that's what you're asking,” she said. “If you were, you would have tried something stupid already, instead of sitting there all nervous and sweet and having this lovely conversation with me.” She reached over, pulled the wine cup from his hands, and drank down the contents. “Can I ask you one more question, though?”

He pondered a moment. “I've answered a lot already, but sure. A question for a question, honesty for honesty.”

She nodded. “Why _didn't_ you attack me?”

“Funny,” he said; “that was going to be exactly what I asked too.”

“But I asked first.”

“Well...” Alexien paused, trying to collect his thoughts. He realized he didn't have an easy answer. “Well, why _would_ I have attacked you?”

“I'm a vampire,” she said slowly, deliberately, in a low voice. Her amber eyes – and terrifying or not, they _were_ beautiful – bore into him, her gaze steady and unwavering. It felt like a mountain was staring him down. What was she watching for? Weakness? Indecision? “I'm not some helpless maiden you rescued from a monster. I am the monster. I've killed. I've enjoyed it. You know that.”

Alexien looked like he wanted to argue, but nodded slowly.

Serana continued, in that same flat, unrelenting tone. “You could have killed me. Maybe you should have. But instead you helped me, and you even healed me, when you had no reason to, and every reason not to. Why? Do you know how few people would help someone like me?”

What to say to that? _No trouble, it was nothing_? Or _Thanks for not killing me either_? Certainly not _Please don't make me regret it and eat me_. He tried for a moment to reply with a joke, but it felt wrong. She had been – or seemed – sincere, open; he should be equally so.

“I... couldn't have done otherwise. No,” he said, frowning, “I know how that sounds. I just mean... you needed help, and you weren't an enemy. You had chances to kill me or just let me die too, and you didn't. And then you actually fought beside me. I'd be a villain if you were wounded and I just left you there.”

She only stared.

“Look,” he said, and stopped. Her eyes were unnerving. “Look, I'll be honest with you. Whatever you are – or whatever you want me to think you are – when I saw you, you were distraught, and confused, and desperately, forsakenly alone; and whether you were human, elf, vampire, or troll, I wasn't going to attack anyone in those circumstances. And you hadn't given me – and still haven't given me – any reason to think you're an enemy.”

“You shouldn't trust me,” she said. Did her voice waver a bit, or was it his imagination?

“I... honestly don't have an answer to that,” he said, and he didn't. “But I've answered your question. Your turn.”

For a moment she looked like she might refuse. “I could tell you,” she started, “that I just wanted information from you, or to use you as an ally to help me fight my way out, or to spare you for my dinner later. Or all three.”

“But you promised to answer honestly.”

“And you don't think that would be an honest answer?”

It was Alexien's turn to say nothing. If he couldn't quite match the intensity of her stare, he thought, at least he could match her silence.

“I was tempted,” Serana admitted. She seemed to be forcing herself to talk, against her inclination. “Your blood smelled... divine, after I'd been fasting for several lifetimes. And I was expecting to be woken by one of my own kind, at least. Though I would have distrusted another vampire for other reasons.”

Alexien nodded, not really understanding, but willing to let her take her time.

Serana bit her lip. Why _had_ she not attacked? Perhaps, if he had appeared weaker, she might have killed him at once; perhaps also if he had appeared stronger. It was true she had needed information, but she could have broken his mind and got it that way: not easy, but more reliable. So, why? She imagined two situations where she would undoubtedly have struck him down in anger: if he had fawned over her like the sycophants at the castle, or shrunk back in revulsion like other mortals. He had done neither. That, too, was inexplicable, irrational.

“I had no reason not to attack you,” she said finally, “but still I refrained. And I had, and have, no reason to trust you, but still I chose to risk it. I have no other answer or justification to give you. Do with that as you will.”

“Well, that's not much of an explanation at all,” said Alexien, somehow cheerfully, and he refilled the wine cup in her hands; “but I accept it.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” she said.

“No, it doesn't,” he agreed.

“And you're okay with that?”

“I'll make the best of it. If you had a _reason_ for not killing me, you might change your mind as soon as circumstances change.”

“That doesn't make any sense either,” she said again.

“Shush. I'm trying to live in complete denial of my eventual fate here. You're making it hard to be irrationally optimistic.”

She laughed at that, and took a sip of wine before passing the cup back to him.

He took a drink, then stared at the cup. “Um... not to be rude, but I'm going to ask another rude question. Shouldn't I be worried about _Sanguinare vampiris_? If we're hanging out together like this.”

She looked uncomfortable, and he immediately regretted saying anything. “Not in this case. I'm... different.”

“Sorry, I –”

“It's okay. Sensitive subject. You couldn't know.”

He nodded, and cast about for a different subject; but she beat him to it.

“What were you reading when I came in?” And she reached over and picked up the book.

“ _Incident at Necrom_. It's somewhat controversial among mages, because of its inaccurate portrayal of Illusion magic; but I've always had a theory that that's the point, and many of the main events aren't actually happening and are just illusions cast by one of the characters. It concerns a group of adventurers clearing – er – clearing a graveyard of vampires.”

She looked at him.

“The awkwardness of which,” he continued, “I am only just realizing at this very moment.”

She grinned, and tossed the book at him. “You're really bad at this.”

He shrugged, though he didn't know what _this_ referred to.

After a moment, Serana said, with a look half between sadness and excitement, “You know, I just realized how many centuries of new books I've missed.”

“You'll have to spend at least as many centuries catching up.”

She shook her head. “I've already read everything at home a hundred times, and my father isn't the sort to stock up. For all I know they've all crumbled to dust by now.”

“Nirn to Serana,” said Alexien. “We're traveling to the largest city in Skyrim and the capital of the entire province, with probably the largest concentration of Imperials, Altmer, and Bretons for a thousand miles. I'm sure that in some hidden corner of Solitude, if we search hard enough, we'll be able to find at least one book you haven't read before. They might even have an entire _shop_ or twenty devoted to such rarities.”

She gave a genuine smile. “This journey might not be so bad after all.”

“And,” he said after a moment's hesitation, “if you ever come to Winterhold, you're welcome to visit the College library. Standing invitation.”

“See, now you're doing much better.”

He raised an eyebrow, and she smiled innocently at him.

“You know,” he said, refilling the wine, taking a drink, and then passing it back to her, “we're getting along splendidly, and I've always felt that not-killing-each-other is the ideal foundation for friendship, but I don't actually know... really, anything about you personally.”

“No, you don't.” She took another drink and handed it back.

“Don't you think I should? If I'm going to meet your family and all.”

Serana suddenly looked uncomfortable again. “Not yet. I'm sorry.” She looked it. “But it's better that way for now. I know it's not fair. I'll tell you what I can when I can.”

Well then. That was rather off-putting, and perhaps a little suspicious. No, not suspicious: even if she wasn't being open, she was being forthright, and that suggested honesty. If she wanted to deceive or conceal, she could more easily have made up a lie. He looked at her. Her face was turned away, but she had picked up the book, and she was running her fingers over the spine and gripping the cover absently. As if she were nervous, and looking for something to do with her hands. Alexien shook his head. She was either being sincere – was in fact even feeling vulnerable – or was a _supremely_ good manipulator. Which was certainly probable enough. But, he thought, it had perhaps been over-familiar of him to ask; they could banter and joke together in a friendly enough way, sure, but they _had_ met only hours ago. And in that time he had already been asking a number of rather prying questions.

“That's all right,” he said. “I'm sorry to have pressed.”

She glanced up again, and smiled. “Thank you.” After a moment, she looked back down at her lap and continued: “I know it's not fair of me to ask, so feel free to refuse... but I would like to know more about you. Why did you leave to High Rock, for instance?”

She was right, it wasn't fair to ask. There was a harsh retort on his tongue – then he saw her hands nervously playing with the book again, and felt his frustration fade. Oh yes, she was good at this. He should reply. Not give away any actually useful information – not that she's find the story interesting anyway – but at least maintain the friendly tone of conversation.

“It doesn't make for a very good story,” he said. He refilled the wine again – he should probably be keeping count, but he felt it calming him and thought it would help him sleep – and drank, and passed it back to her. “Nothing worthy of including in any book worth reading. I'm sadly lacking in dark secrets and tragic histories. Ideally, in the circumstances, I should have lost my parents when I was young; they should have been killed in front of me by vampires, forcing me to flee from home for safety. Then I could have devoted my life to vengeance – until, of course, I met you; and you should be a vampire princess, deadly, to be sure, but still a lady in distress, whom I could save from your wicked relatives, and who in turn could teach me to forget my hatred. That's a much better story.”

“A vampire princess with a wicked family?” Serana smiled. She still held the book, but her hands had relaxed. “What an imagination you have. What next? Perhaps you'll save me from a dragon, when some ignorant villagers chain me to a rock and try to serve me up as an offering?”

“Several dragons. And then, I think, a Daedric lord. That's how these stories are supposed to go, isn't it?”

“If you're the hero,” she said. “Maybe I'm the hero, and I'm the one who has to save you from dragons and Daedric lords. But you could also just be an innocent bystander. Perhaps you're even the victim” – she leaned in closer and looked right in his eyes – “under my spell, taken captive by my dark magic and forced to do my will, after you found yourself lost in my cursed tomb where I was sealed away by the heroes of old; and now you've unwittingly unleashed a forgotten horror on an unsuspecting world.”

Alexien paused. The thought had in fact occurred to him. He reminded himself, with some difficulty, that this sweet-looking young woman was still an ancient vampire. “But then,” he said, leaning back slightly and hoping she didn't notice his discomfort – but she grinned, damn it, she _did_ enjoy teasing him – “I should be innocent and sympathetic, so that my fate could be the more lamentable. I should have been adventuring in that crypt looking for just enough treasure to be able to support my ailing sister. Alas, I have no sister and am not particularly innocent, so the story is ruined.”

She kept grinning, and after a moment he felt himself smiling back. She laughed and finished off the wine.

“I should go,” she said suddenly. “I'm sorry, I've kept you awake long enough already.”

He felt that she had noticed he hadn't actually answered her question. As was only fair, he thought; but his inner voice sounded defensive even to himself. “I wouldn't have slept yet anyway,” he said, “so thank you for the charming company. But yes, I've been up – gods, two and a half days now – so I won't fight you.”

“At least tonight,” she said, with that annoyingly innocent smile she seemed to have mastered. “I'll see you in the morning, then. Good night.” And she opened the room's door and walked out.

Alexien stared after her for a while. Then he got up, put the palm of his right hand flat on the closed door, hesitated a moment, and then cast a ward on it. For good measure, he closed the window shutters and warded them as well.

Trust was all well and good, he thought, but no one ever regretted being cautious.


	3. Voyages with Vampires

Alexien woke to find his wards still in place. In the fresh morning light, if he was being honest with himself, they seemed unnecessary, and he regretted the previous night's paranoia. He doubted Serana would have tried anything, and suspected she could probably tear down any defensive magic he could put up anyway. All the same, he reminded himself, what was paranoia under other circumstances might be a very wise precaution when dealing with a vampire.

He half-expected her to be gone. Instead, as soon as he left his room he found her already sitting at a table in the common area, reading a book. He took a moment to analyze her appearance. On the one hand, he didn't know how she could have more obviously shown what she was: she wore a deep burgundy shirt, probably silk, and everything else – corselet, pants, boots, bracers – was supple blackened leather, tooled with intricate but inhuman designs. She wore a hooded black cloak, bound at her neck with a brooch like a stylized skull. On the other hand, she somehow made it look like a perfectly sensible fashion choice, and her face was that of a sweet young woman, innocent but with a knowing charm. Only her eyes gave anything away.

Oh, and she was still wearing an honest-to-Akatosh Elder Scroll on her back.

Those eyes came up to meet his a few seconds after he entered, and she smiled at him. She looked genuinely pleased to see him, he thought, and he felt himself smiling back almost involuntarily.

Maybe paranoia was smart after all.

Alexien spoke to the innkeeper, then nodded at Serana. She closed the book and returned it to the innkeeper, with her thanks; he took it, and nodded his farewell to her.

“He lent you a book?” Alexien asked, as they were leaving the inn and starting back on the road west.

“Well, I was up early – almost as if I was awake all night – and he took pity on a poor sleepless girl with nothing to do,” she said. “He was very kind. Warned me about you, actually.”

“About me?”

“He wanted to know what a sweet young lady like myself was doing traveling with a dangerous mage,” she said, teasing. “He assured me I didn't have to go with you if I didn't want to.”

Alexien snorted. “Well, he gave you an out at least.”

“You're not getting rid of me that easily. You promised me Solitude.”

He nodded absently. “I'll be honest,” he said after a moment, “I'm a little surprised that went so easily, and no one found us out.”

“Us?”

“Fine, you.”

“You're the one who was sure no one would realize what I am,” Serana pointed out.

“That was before I noticed your eyes,” he said, looking at her. Now that he was watching for it, even in the sunlight her eyes had that unnatural glow. “Come to think of it, how _didn't_ I notice that right away?”

“What?” she asked, genuinely confused. Then her face lit up. “Oh, that. It's a low-level illusion, some of us do it almost unconsciously. We can't hide our eyes entirely, but we can usually prevent them from being noticed. Unless someone takes a really close look. It doesn't work on people who train themselves to watch for it, so a hunter would usually see it immediately. For that matter,” she added pointedly, “a skilled mage should probably be able to sense the illusion.”

“I was probably just having trouble distinguishing it from your aura's general creepiness.”

“Creepy? Me?” She put her fingers to her chest, and opened her mouth as if in shock, wide enough to show her fangs. “I'm hurt.”

He snorted again, but she saw him smiling.

“Are you sure you're okay traveling in sunlight?” he asked suddenly.

Serana nodded. Truth be told, it was awfully uncomfortable, and only her thick cloak drawn tightly around her body, the heavy hood pulled so low over her face that it was hidden in shadow, kept her from feeling sick. Even through the covering and her clothes, the sun prickled her skin. But she didn't want him to know that, for a variety of reasons. Chief among them, she didn't want him to know how much she was weakened during the day. But there were other reasons too. “I'm fine. Thanks.”

“Let me know if we need to stop and find shade or something.”

“I'm fine,” she insisted again. She meant to sound annoyed, but didn't think she had quite managed it.

After walking the road a while, they settled into a comfortable pace, and chatted freely about nothing in particular. Serana was often distracted by the sights: a snow-covered ruin, a beautiful view of the mountains to the south or the sea to the north, or just a cluster of late-autumn flowers. At first she ignored all this and kept to their steady pace, but over time she slowed down more and more to admire everything as they passed, and in the end would stop entirely and insist they take time to drink in the views. If Alexien minded, he didn't show it.

When the sun was directly overhead they stopped at a clearing in a pine forest, blanketed with little red flowers defying the early snow. Serana breathed in the earthy scent of the trees and the flowers with a sigh of contentment. Alexien had drawn a knife and was cutting some of the plants, twining them together and putting them in his pack. He explained, with a shrug, that they were a good alchemical ingredient. But some of the larger blossoms he handed to Serana, who grinned and braided them into her hair.

That night they had to camp out. Alexien started a fire, then unfolded a small tent from his pack. Serana swore the bag had to be enchanted to hold as much as it did. He insisted she take the tent, which was gallant but unnecessary, really, but she didn't fight. When she pointed out it was large enough for both of them, he shook his head and sat out by the fire, stoking it idly. But when she got up and left some time later to look for something to eat, he was sitting back against a tree, arms folded over his chest, fast asleep; and she found him in the same position when she returned. She kept watch until he started to stir, then she lay back down.

The next morning they continued on in the same way. Serana was growing comfortable with the new routine, walking a few miles at a time, trading jokes with Alexien, and stopping to look around for a while at anything that caught her attention. A few times they passed Nordic ruins older even than her, and she would walk around, wondering at the architecture, transported back through the ages; Alexien would take rubbings of some of the carvings and tell her about recent history, while she recounted some of the legends from her own day. She knew all this would slow down their progress, but wasn't bothered by the thought: as much as she needed to return home, she almost admitted to herself, she didn't want to. This was more fun.

Of course it couldn't last.

Later in the afternoon, they mounted a hill, and saw some distance away another traveler on the road, coming towards them from the opposite direction. This wasn't unusual; they had passed a few others uneventfully, with bare nods of acknowledgement. But Alexien suddenly tensed, and spat a curse: “Magnus, not now.”

Serana took a closer look. The figure was tall – taller than her – and wearing armor, but Serana could tell it was a woman from the way she walked. She carried a sword on her hip, with a shield slung over her back. She was trudging along the road, head down; but she looked up once, and saw Alexien, and stood up straighter and waved at him. Even from a distance Serana could sense her relief, like a shipwrecked swimmer sighting land.

Alexien stopped, but the woman started walking faster towards them. They had a moment to talk before she got close enough. Serana turned to him and asked, “Friend of yours?”

“Brynhild. She was at the Hall – a Vigilant. I didn't know she survived.”

Serana was about to say she was glad, when she remembered exactly what had happened at the Hall. She felt a stab of guilt, and then anxiety. She hadn't had anything to do with the attack, but still, if her guess was right, she knew who had, and why; and ultimately it was her fault. She should have known she couldn't just forget about that part of her life, as she had tried to do for the last two days. And now this Brynhild was approaching, someone from Alexien's own world; he would welcome her, and they could go off together, commiserate together over their shared hardships. And Serana wouldn't be welcome there. Alexien might even abandon her entirely; and why not? Here was one of his own, a friend and a comrade, human, alive. Why choose to travel with a monster instead?

But then a worse thought, a cold thought crept in: what if he betrayed her? Brynhild was a Vigilant, a survivor of a vampire attack; she would recognize Serana at once for what she was. She wouldn't be friendly or tolerant. If she attacked... what if Alexien took her side? Serana looked up. It was daylight. Why had she agreed to travel by day? Alexien was competent enough in a fight, and this woman looked like she knew her business; in the open like this, under the sun, if the two of them turned on her at once, she might not be able to hold them off. Together they might be able to overpower her. They could kill her – or force her to kill them. Her eyes darted back at Alexien, searching his face. He had killed several of her kind already, she remembered. This had been foolish, a pointless risk; she should have been more careful, should never have let herself get into this situation. She knew better.

Don't let him see.

“Oh,” she said. “Isn't that good?”

His kept staring ahead, straight at the approaching Vigilant. “It would be. If I weren't traveling with a vampire right after vampires killed everyone she knew and loved.”

“Oh,” said Serana again. “You're worried she'll think you're with me – with us now?”

“No, I – ” he stopped, and looked hard at Serana. Seconds passed. “Lower your hood.”

Serana stared. “She'll know, then.”

“She'll know anyway,” he said in a low voice, hurriedly. “Illusion is our only chance, but it'll only work if she doesn't get suspicious, right? She'll be suspicious if you're hiding your face. Lower your hood.”

She didn't move.

“Serana, please,” he said. His eyes were desperate.

Slowly, Serana felt her hands go up to her face, grasp the hem of the material, and pull it back. At once the sun stabbed her eyes, and her head ached; but she pushed the pain away, and watched him.

He closed his eyes hard, concentrating, and made an almost imperceptible gesture with his right hand. Her vision blurred, just for a moment, and she felt the familiar flow of Illusion magic, probing, searching for her own spells, mixing itself into them.

“What did you do?”

He didn't answer. Brynhild was too close. He put on a smile and stepped towards her.

“Alexien!” she cried, and threw her arms around him. “Thank Talos, you're alive!”

“Brynhild,” he answered, smiling, and returned her embrace. “I knew they'd have to try harder than that to get you.”

She laughed, and they separated, examining one another. For all her apparent relief, Serana realized, this Nord was annoyingly wary.

“You escaped?” she asked. “Did... did anyone else make it out?”

“Tolan and I fought our way through them. No – ” he added quickly, seeing her face light up, “he... didn't make it. They got him the next night.”

“Adalvald was away, maybe he – ”

“That's where – Tolan and I were trying to rescue him,” Alexien said. He added after a moment, “He did not die unavenged, if that's any consolation.”

“Thank Shor for that,” she mumbled. “Then... it's just the two of us left. Of those that were at the Hall, I mean; I think there are some others down in the Reach...”

Alexien didn't answer. Brynhild's eyes glanced once at Serana, then back to him, and she continued: “I didn't know what to do, I started towards Morthal, I have family there, but then I turned back and thought I might run into other survivors...”

Alexien shook his head sadly. After a silent moment, he gestured towards Serana and gave a slight bow. “Forgive my manners, with everything going on – this is Katrin, a friend of mine from the College.”

Serana curtsied, and make it look natural. “It's a pleasure,” she said, “though I wish it were under other circumstances.”

Brynhild nodded absently. “Three is better than two, and a lot better than one,” she said. “So... what should we do?”

“Go to the Dawnguard,” Alexien said without hesitation. “By Riften. They've been expecting something like this, they'll welcome you. You don't have to join them,” he added, seeing the look on her face; “just accept their protection until this is all over.”

Brynhild frowned. “You're not coming?”

“I'm... not a warrior,” he said, shaking his head. “I've had enough of Skyrim. I'm going back to High Rock.”

She glanced at Serana again. “With your friend from the College?”

“I'm only going as far as Solitude,” Serana said. “I had some business there, when I ran into Alexien by Dawnstar, and we agreed to travel together for safety. From there he'll take a ship around to Daggerfall.”

“You can't just leave us, not now,” Brynhild said. She faced Serana. “Either of you. I'm sorry – Katrin, wasn't it? – but we need your help. There are _vampires_ running wild in Skyrim, and I don't know who can stop them. We need everyone we can get.”

“That's why you should go to the Dawnguard,” said Alexien. “But I... I'm done. I barely made it out the first time, and then I was on the run for three days, without sleep. And then Tolan, and Adalvald... and that's enough for me.”

Serana could _feel_ the suspicion radiating off Brynhild. Alexien had been too quick in trying to get rid of her. And a paranoid mind might well think it suspicious that Alexien alone had escaped, where two other experienced Vigilants had died. If she hadn't guessed Serana was a vampire, she at least thought they might both be thralls.

Brynhild started to open her mouth, but Serana raised a hand to stop her, and stepped closer to Alexien's side. “We should tell her,” she said.

Alexien's eyes widened, and he looked at Serana. “Are you sure?”

 _Trust me_ , she wanted to say. But she just looked into his eyes for a moment, willing him to read her thoughts, and turned back to Brynhild. “Please, don't blame him. It's my fault. I just don't want him to run any more risks, I can't lose him like that. So...” she took a deep breath, as if to steady herself, and threaded her fingers through Alexien's. Her hand was cold, and she felt him jump, but he returned her grip without hesitation. “We're going to Solitude to be married. My family has a house there, I made him promise to come with me, leave all this behind.”

He hid his surprise reasonably well. He smiled at Serana, and turned back to Brynhild. “It was supposed to be secret,” he explained. “My family – you know what noble families in High Rock are like, obsessed with how many titles your great-great-grandfather held; they would try to prevent it if they knew. We were going to wait, but... nearly being killed...” his voice trailed off.

Brynhild's gaze softened. “Yes, of course –”

“I'm sorry we can't come with you,” said Serana. “But... I can't stand putting this off any longer. _Especially_ because of the danger.”

Brynhild nodded. “All right. That's... I can't argue with that. Alexien, Katrin, I hope you change your mind, afterwards; if you do, I'll be at the Dawnguard. We'll be glad to have you. Otherwise, farewell.”

“Will you be safe to travel alone?” asked Serana, face concerned.

“I'll be fine. Don't worry about me, worry about any vampires I meet.”

She and Alexien traded grips, but thankfully she did not seem to want to shake Serana's hand. She stayed with them a bit longer, talking, offering her congratulations, and then went her way east on the road, and they continued west.

“Well, that went well, sort of,” said Alexien.

“Barely. You should have just let me enthrall her or wipe her memory. Lies always leave a mess: too many loose ends you have to keep track of.”

“Oh sure, now you offer a solution.”

“Excuse me,” said Serana, “it was my idea that finally got rid of her.”

He was silent a moment. “That it was,” he admitted. “Thank you. I... didn't want that to come to violence. She's a good person.”

“What if it had?” The question spilled out of Serana before she could stop herself.

He looked at her as if he didn't understand the question.

“If it had come to violence... what would you have done?”

Alexien was silent so long she thought he wasn't going to answer. Finally, he said, “Honestly? I'm glad I didn't have to find out.”

 _Good enough._ “Me too. It would have been a shame to have to kill you.” She smiled at him innocently. “So soon, I mean.”

He rolled his eyes.

“You played along well though,” she said. “Most people can't make up a lie like that under pressure.”

“Ah,” he said awkwardly. “That's because it wasn't a lie. I was sort of telling the truth.”

Serana raised an eyebrow. “Your family's nobility?”

He looked uncomfortable. “Lower nobility. And therefore all the more obsessed with ancestors and family trees and pedigree. They'd probably think I was bringing shame on the entire house if I so much as spoke to a girl whose father wasn't at least a count.”

Better not respond to that, Serana thought; too easy. And he clearly didn't like the subject. “What exactly was the illusion you cast, by the way?”

“Oh,” he said, glad to move on, “that latent veil you said you use to conceal your glowing-vampire-eyes thing, I just amplified it a bit. Since you do it all the time, I assumed it had to be a projection, not a direct working on a particular target's mind, so, I thought, I should be able to use it as a foundation and add some of my own effects.”

“Which were?”

“I gave you brown eyes.”

“Of all the options available to you,” she said, “with the power of creation at your fingertips, drawing upon the very essence of Aetherius to enforce your will on the world, and limited by nothing at all in all Mundus other than your own imagination, you decided that your best possible course of action was to make my eyes brown.”

“By Hermaeus Mora, no. That would be Alteration. All I did was make them _appear_ brown.”

“You are, beyond a doubt, the most boring spellcaster I have ever met.”

“Then it's fortunate for me that your options are so very limited at the moment.”

They continued down the road towards Morthal, and bantered on. Serana smiled to herself: maybe she could forget for a little while longer yet.

* * *

Morthal had seen better days.

Neither of them had any reason for thinking so, except that its present condition _had_ to be rock-bottom. It certainly couldn't have seen worse days.

The approach was through a swamp. But not a cheerful swamp full of life. A dismal and decrepit swamp, with dead, stagnant pools and leafless trees, and air heavy with rot. Not even Serana found much to admire. Occasionally they saw a deer, which seemed as unhappy to be there as they were, but mostly they saw frostbite spiders. Serana would occasionally point out certain fungi as useful for potions, but even Alexien (who had since learned that she was the more knowledgeable alchemist) wasn't particularly eager to harvest the smelly pods and carry them around with him. On this she silently agreed, but out loud she made fun of him.

Both were looking forward to arriving in a proper town, Alexien so that he could sleep in a bed, Serana because she was starting to feel hungry. Alexien was just wondering whether it was his imagination, or if she had really been staring at him more intently than normal, when thankfully they found themselves inside the town limits. It was unwalled, which Serana clicked her tongue at. They walked along a series of wooden planks raised just above the water level. Any of the townspeople they passed gave them a very wide berth, and watched them with equal parts suspicion and annoyance.

“Not very fond of strangers, are they?” asked Serana.

Alexien shook his head. “They don't get many. Most visitors to Solitude approach from the south, or by sea. Morthal is known to be a bit isolationist.”

It was already twilight. They found what seemed to be the only inn in town. It was more of an ale house than an inn, but the proprietor explained to them that, yes, they had beds for rent, but no, he wouldn't rent them one. Serana assumed this was a tactic to haggle up the price, and started to put on her most charming smile; but the innkeep shook his head and gestured around the room.

“Magic ain't welcome here,” he grumbled.

It was true: the room had gone almost silent, and the eyes of almost every patron were on them. A few, who looked more fearful or more drunk than the rest, were fingering weapons as if to comfort themselves.

“Jarl don't mind your kind,” said the innkeep. It sounded less like a helpful comment, more like an insult, though whether aimed at the jarl or at them was hard to tell.

Serana reflected that at least she wouldn't feel guilty feeding here tonight. What Alexien thought, he didn't show. He bowed his thanks and walked outside, ignoring the stares.

“Superstitious peasants are the worst,” mumbled Alexien.

“Now now, where's your confidence that the Nords are hospitable enough once you earn their trust?”

“I was in a good mood when I said that.”

They went to the jarl's hall. It looked all but deserted. The two guards outside looked disposed to give them trouble, but they glanced once at Serana's eyes and let them enter.

That was odd. Odd enough to catch Serana's attention. As Alexien went inside, she stayed back for just a moment, and swept her gaze over the town behind them. Then she closed her eyes and tried to shut out all the sights and sounds and smells, and focus.

She found what she was looking for at once, and was surprised she hadn't noticed it before: a greasy coldness on the air, the lingering psychic stain of another vampire, and a cruel one at that. At least one of the guards was contaminated with it, wore it like a foul perfume.

She should warn Alexien.

Shouldn't she?

She opened her eyes again. The guard was looking at her. She smiled, turned, and followed Alexien inside the hall.

“You are welcome here,” came a dreamy voice, “and I give you and your friend the freedom of Morthal.”

The hall had a long hearth running up a central isle, flanked by wooden columns on either side. At the opposite end of the hall was a throne, and in it sat an ancient woman, bent with age, but with bright, alert eyes. There were few other figures in the hall: a younger woman stood beside the throne, and off to the side, half-hidden in the shadows, was a man in leather armor, evidently a bodyguard. Alexien stood in front of the hearth.

He bowed. “I thank you, Jarl Idgrod. Your kindness is most appreciated.”

“My kindness is only recompense for the unkindness my subjects must have shown you.”

Alexien hesitated.

“Don't fear to offend me,” said the jarl. “I know them, what they say of me and mine. All the more reason that people like you and I must cling to one another.”

Several of the other figures shifted uncomfortably.

“People like us, my jarl?” asked Alexien.

She leaned forward on her throne. “The Wise,” she said, in a low voice. “We who know things.”

Serana came to stand beside Alexien, who bowed again to the jarl. “Forgive me,” he said. “I have heard rumors that Idgrod Ravencrone was gifted with prophecy, but I did not know the truth, nor that it was spoken of openly in your court.”

She looked pleased. “It is indeed a gift. I do not hide it. But I am glad that you recognize it as such. There are many in Morthal, many even in my own home, who are unable or unwilling to understand it. They do not wish to believe in the coming darkness.”

The young woman standing beside the throne coughed delicately. “Mother,” she said, “we have another guest.”

“I have already declared that she is welcome, child.”

“But she has not been introduced.”

Alexien, taking that for his queue, turned to Serana. “Jarl Idgrod, you have already been kind enough to extend your hospitality both to myself and to my companion, but please, allow me to introduce you to the object of your kindness. This is – ”

“Serana of the Volkihar,” said Serana quickly. Then she realized what she had said, and stood aghast. Why had she given her real name? And her clan – what had she been thinking?

Idgrod only nodded. “Yes. I thought you might be the one. The Divines do not lie. You are welcome here, Lady Serana. Do what you must do.”

No one responded to that. Soon afterwards, a steward appeared and offered to show them to a guest room. As they left the main hall, Idgrod was speaking in eager, low tones to her daughter.

* * *

Alexien had again, somewhat to Serana's annoyance, insisted that she take the large bed in their room, even though it could have comfortably fit four of them. But at this moment both were still awake. Alexien was at a small table, poring over a fragmented text and taking notes from it, while Serana was sitting up in the bed and reading a volume of _The Real Barenziah_ she had borrowed from him. There came a knock at the door.

An elderly Nord entered, grey-headed but tall and straight, and dressed in fine clothes. He shut the door behind him.

“Please pardon the interruption,” he said. “My name is Aslfur. I am here on behalf of the jarl.”

“Be welcome,” said Alexien, rising and offering him a seat. This was, truth be told, rather an annoying interruption; but rudeness would hardly do. Serana stayed where she was.

Aslfur sat. “I will not waste your time,” he said. “Jarl Idgrod wishes to ask a favor of you. There is a question that she believes you, as outsiders, will be more suited to investigate without bias.”

“I am at my host's disposal,” Alexien said.

Aslfur glanced at Serana, who nodded: “Yeah, sure.”

“Good,” he said. “The case is this. A few nights ago, a house burned down. The house belonged to Hroggar, a respected member of the community. His wife and daughter died in the fire.”

“That doesn't sound particularly suspicious.”

“The very next day,” said the steward, “Hroggar moved in with Alva, a woman much younger and more beautiful than his wife.”

“Ah.”

Aslfur nodded. “Public opinion in Morthal condemns him already, but there is no direct evidence linking him to the crime. If it was a crime.”

“But the jarl believes him innocent?”

He hesitated.

“I think your silence means,” said Serana, “that the jarl had a 'vision' about it.”

“The jarl,” he said, slowly and carefully, “suspects that something else may be at work. She would like you to find proof one way or the other.”

“All right,” said Alexien. “We'll see what we can find in the morning.” He glanced at Serana, who nodded.

Aslfur rose. “The jarl is grateful for your assistance. And your discretion.”

He left, and Alexien sat brooding a while.

Serana sighed. She really was getting quite hungry. The previous night, she had waited until he was asleep to sneak off; tonight, he didn't look like he was going to bed any time soon. She could wait until tomorrow, sure, but that was not particularly appealing. And besides, Alexien already knew what she was. He had to know that she occasionally fed. He had even asked about it once. They just... hadn't directly confronted the fact before.

Well, they'd have to eventually. She wasn't going to sneak around the whole time they were traveling together, as if it were something she was ashamed of.

“Hey,” she said.

He looked up at her.

“I'm... going to step out for a bit. I kind of – I need to get something to eat.”

For a moment, his face was blank. She could tell the exact instant when he understood what she meant.

“Oh,” he said. Then, a few seconds later, “Oh. Right.”

“I won't be gone long.”

“Right. And you said... it won't hurt anyone?”

“I won't kill anyone,” she assured him. “I'm careful.”

He nodded. “Okay. I'll... be here when you get back, then.”

Serana, feeling a surge of relief – _Why?_ – stood up and walked towards the door. She was just pulling her hood up, when Alexien reached out a hand and stopped her.

“Just... be careful,” he said. “If someone sees you –”

“I know. I've done this before, you know,” she said. “But... thanks for not making a big deal out of it.”

He nodded. “Thanks for not just snacking on me.”

“Of course not, silly,” she said, smiling. “You're no use to me if you're exhausted because I've been draining your blood every night.”

“Keeping me for a special occasion, then?”

She winked at him, and walked out.

When she got back some time later, Alexien was still awake, looking over his book. He smiled at her, a little awkwardly but sincerely. She smiled back. When she had got into bed, he blew the candle out.

“Good night, Serana,” she heard him say.

* * *

The people of Morthal were not, in fact, very cooperative.

Alexien and Serana had started by looking around the burnt house. Even using his magical senses, however, Alexien was able to discern nothing other than, yes, it had burned down. Serana found more: once again, she felt the lingering stain that meant one of her own kind had been at work here. But – it was different: not the cruel coldness she had sensed on the guard. A different vampire? She started to tell Alexien, but stopped herself. The vampire might not have had anything to do with the fire, she told herself.

After that, Alexien suggested they ask around Morthal. Most people shied away from them, refused to answer their questions, pretended they hadn't spoken. At least, that _he_ hadn't spoken: he noticed that they seemed slightly more willing to talk to Serana, that they usually turned more friendly when she aimed her smile at them. He decided not to think too much about that.

Eventually, once the townspeople had learned that the strangers were investigating the fire, they were more forthcoming. In fact, they were positively eager to share their suspicions. Almost unanimously, they said, they _knew_ that Hroggar was guilty. Awfully suspicious, moving in with Alva like that. They always thought he had been bad for his wife. They had never trusted him.

In fact, they had plenty of distrust to go around, and even those who _knew_ Hroggar was guilty were also happy to point the blame at another newcomer: Falion. A conjurer named Falion had recently moved into Morthal, it seemed. And the locals did not like him. He returned their dislike. There were all sorts of rumors about what he did in his house. Some people said he was summoning Daedra. Others said that he was performing experiments on Agni, a local orphan he had adopted. A few swore that they had seen him out in the swamp at night, performing some kind of dark ritual.

When Alexien pressed them for details about this, they confessed: Well, that hadn't _seen_ him doing any such kind of ritual, but really, what else would he be up to? When asked what any of this had to do with the fire, they shrugged. You could never tell with wizard-types.

“All right, I think this is a dead end,” Alexien said to Serana afterwards.

She nodded, but said nothing. She was debating whether she should tell him about the other vampire. She _should,_ surely; it was pertinent information. But it would also be betraying one of her own kind. And, most of all, she really didn't want to recall his attention to what she was, and what things like her did in towns like this.

But if he found out anyway, and she hadn't told him...

He was turning away to go back to the hall. She grabbed his arm, and said quickly, “We need to talk.”

He tensed, and she heard his heart beating faster.

 _Smooth_ , Serana thought. “I... think I know what was behind this,” she said.

He looked into her face for several seconds, with a quizzical expression. Then his eyes went wide. “Oh,” he said. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

She shook her head. “About this part? No. But there's definitely another one around.” She hesitated. “At least one.”

He watched her face carefully. Did the apparently helpful information perhaps contain a veiled threat? Surely Serana wouldn't...? But then, he reminded himself, he had never been with her when facing others of her own kind. He didn't know how she might react. Even if she didn't turn violent, she would surely be less than thrilled. At the very least, she might refuse to help him.

“Are you suggesting we drop this?” he asked in a low voice.

“No,” she said. “I just thought you should know.”

He was quiet. “Thank you,” he said finally. “I appreciate you telling me. Do you... I can handle this alone, if you'd rather not –”

“No,” she said again. “I'm with you. But thanks.”

He nodded. “How do you suggest we handle this?”

“Graveyard,” said Serana, without hesitation. “There's a reason folklore associates us with graveyards. The recently dead have a kind of fascination for us. Young vampires often feel comfortable there, safe, while they're... while they're still getting used to not being welcome among the living anymore.”

Alexien felt a stab of pity. “All right. So, we wait for dark?”

“Unless you want to walk up to every person in Morthal and do that Detect Undead thing.”

“I'm not sure I'd be able to cast it a few hundred times in a row today,” he admitted. “I don't have good range on it, and it's a concentration-heavy spell.”

“So, dark it is.”

That left them with a few hours to spare. There was little enough to see in Morthal, but what there was, Serana wanted to see. It was at least, as she said, a unique town, whose uniqueness she should sample while they were there, because she hoped never to come back. They walked along the shore of the lake and watched the moons rise. Once they were used to it, even the swamp wasn't quite so unsightly. They met the town alchemist, Lami, the only resident (besides the jarl) who was pleased to talk to them. She and Alexien argued vehemently about the best ways to use various ingredients (whole, chopped, boiled, roasted, distilled, as a tea, as a tincture), until Serana, just to annoy Alexien, sided with Lami; in the end, as darkness fell, Alexien taught her a few new recipes he had learned at the College, for which she traded some bottles of purified essence of _Mora tapinella._

All in all, a successful evening.

Once true darkness had fallen, they crept away from the torches and lights of the town, and towards the nearby graveyard. Serana naturally moved in complete silence, but she took pity on Alexien and cast an illusion to muffle his footsteps. For good measure, she tried to conceal their scent, but wasn't sure how well she succeeded.

As they passed through the trees and neared the graveyard, Serana stopped and gestured to herself, then her nose, and pointed ahead. She smelled another vampire. Alexien nodded. He hesitated a moment, and looked like he was about to say something; but before he had a chance, Serana leaned over and whispered into his ear.

“It's okay,” she said, “I've got your back.”

He nodded again, smiled; and they advanced into the clearing.

It wasn't what they had expected.

There was a figure exactly where Serana had pointed, kneeling over a fresh grave. A woman. But her shoulders were shaking, and they could hear the sound of sobs. Faintly there came the sound of the barest whisper: “No no no, I didn't want this, this isn't what I meant to do, I'm so sorry...”

Alexien looked at Serana questioningly. She seemed taken aback, but nodded, and pointed again to herself and then to the woman. _Vampire_.

They separated, and started to circle around, to put the woman between them. But she heard or sensed something, and suddenly leapt to her feet, and stared straight at Serana, teeth bared, and a look of almost feral rage on her face.

“ _You!_ ” she spat. Then, slowly, the anger faded and was replaced by a look of confusion. “No... not you. You're not her.”

“Not who?” asked Serana. She gestured to Alexien to hold back, not attack yet.

“Not... my mistress,” said the other vampire. “Not Alva.”

“Alva. Is she like us?”

“No! No. Yes. A vampire, yes, but not like us. She's cruel, wicked. I'm – I don't want to be, I didn't mean to...”

“What's your name?” Serana's voice was gentle, as if speaking to an upset child. Which, Alexien reflected, this newling vampire was, compared to her.

“Laelette. At least, that was my name... I don't know if it still is now, now that I...”

“It's still your name, if you want it to be. Laelette. Laelette, can you tell me what happened here?”

“Alva made me...”

Suddenly, somehow, Laelette realized Alexien was there; she spun around with inhuman speed, faster than he had thought her capable of, and shouted at him, “Mortal! No no, you can't be here, you can't know!” And she rushed him.

“Laelette!” cried Serana, in a tone of command. Laelette stopped and slowly turned to face her again.

“This is a friend of mine,” Serana said. Her voice had turned gentle again. “He knows what we are. It's okay, he won't tell anyone. Will you?”

“No. Not a soul,” he said hurriedly. As if he would have said anything else.

Laelette nodded, and Serana went on: “My name is Serana. This is Alexien. We're friends. Now, you were telling us what happened here? What did Alva make you do?”

“Kill them,” said Laelette miserably. “She made me kill them. Even the girl. Helgi. I knew her, I used to watch her for her parents. I loved her like my own. But Alva said they had to die. They were in the way.”

“Of what?”

“She wanted Hroggar. Wanted to enthrall him, so he could protect her. But he had a family. They had to go.”

“So you set the fire,” said Alexien.

Laelette turned back to him. She was crying. “I didn't want to. I didn't have a choice. I tried to save Helgi. I tried to make her like me. But I couldn't. I couldn't, I couldn't, she was already dead...”

Laelette seemed in her misery to forget about their presence again. Serana sighed, and walked over to stand by Alexien. “I know you'll want to... deal with this,” she whispered to him. “But please, let her go. If not for her, then as a personal favor to me.”

Alexien stared at Serana, then back at Laelette. He had never felt less like violence in his life. She was a vampire, she had murdered two innocent people... but he felt nothing but pity for her. He watched her wringing her hands, looking again and again at the little girl's grave, and felt sick.

He nodded at Serana.

She gave a sigh of relief, and want over to talk to Laelette. She put a hand on her shoulder. They spoke in low voices for a while, too quietly for Alexien to hear. Then Laelette nodded several times, and thanked Serana repeatedly.

“Go,” said Serana. And Laelette fled into the night.

“What... in Mundus... just happened?” he asked Serana, as she strode up to him again.

“We let her go. She's not dangerous. Not really. You heard her, she didn't mean to hurt anyone, and I don't think she will in the future either.” Serana looked at him. “Thank you, by the way. I know you don't trust us; but believe me, that was kind of you, and you won't regret it.”

 _I know you don't trust us_. It was like a punch in the stomach.

“That's not what I meant,” he said, ignoring the feeling of guilt. “I mean, what was wrong with her?”

“She... when Alva turned her, she tried to enslave her and did a sloppy job of it. No finesse, just overpowered her psyche by brute force. It broke her mind. Laelette has to obey, sure, but she's damaged.”

“Will she be okay?”

“Eventually. I sent her away from here, to get away from the memories. In time her mind will probably heal.” She looked at him. “If Alva dies.”

“And... are you okay with that?”

“Why? Because I'm a vampire too? I'm nothing like her,” Serana spat. Alexien cringed. “This Alva is everything wrong with my kind. Breaking people's wills, enslaving them, turning people just to use them as servants... It's not supposed to be like that.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't...”

Serana's eyes met his again. She seemed to deflate. “No, it's okay. Let's just get out of here. We still have a monster to kill tonight.”

Alexien nodded, and they turned and went back towards Morthal.

 _I know you don't trust us_.

Meaning, _I know you don't trust me_.

Maybe he deserved that. And maybe Serana didn't.

* * *

Alva's door was locked, of course. Alexien cursed, but Serana just rolled her eyes and waved her hand over the door handle, and the lock clicked open.

“That one you'll have to teach me.”

“Later,” said Serana. “I'll handle Alva, you keep her thrall off me. Don't kill him, if you can avoid it; he should be himself again once she's dead.”

Alexien briefly had time to register the strangeness of _her_ telling _him_ not to hurt someone – Or _was_ that strange? – when Serana threw open the door and charged inside. He collected himself and rushed in after her.

“ _No!_ ” came a screech from his right. A woman was standing up, hands stretched out like claws, her eyes burning with that same unholy light as Serana's. “Morthal is _mine!_ ”

Serana threw herself at Alva, struck her across the face, and suddenly her hands were wreathed in lightning. Alva screamed and drew a knife.

“I won't let you hurt her!” cried a voice to Alexien's left. Oh, right, the thrall.

He could see why Alva chose Hroggar for a bodyguard. He was taller than Alexien, and broad, and _strong_. He hefted an enormous axe and charged.

Alexien reached out with magic, touched his mind, and tried to Calm him. It was a simple spell. Most people, deep down, did not _want_ to be violent. It was against their nature. Soldiers had to be carefully trained to overcome that instinct, to hurt and kill on command; but even soldiers spent most of their lives being peaceful. Using magic to force people to do violence was hard, and always risked breaking their minds. Using magic to calm people was, in comparison, easy. It was like pushing water downhill.

Or at least, it should be. Apprentices at the College practiced this spell on each other all the time; it was useful, and harmless, and Alexien had cast it a hundred times before. But for the first time, when he felt the energy flowing into Hroggar, there was another presence there, a pressure that pushed back against his magic. He pushed back, sent more magicka into the spell. The harder he pressed, the harder that alien force resisted. Finally the tension was so great that he had to give up, for fear of shattering Hroggar's sanity; and then the axe was coming at his face.

Out swept his sword, and blocked the first blow, and the second, and the third; but the fourth caught the blade, the axe twisted, and his sword clattered across the floor.

Hroggar shouted in triumph, and raised the axe again. Suddenly there was a flash of crimson light, and he was knocked back against the wall. Serana. Alexien took a few seconds to focus his power – Paralysis was a difficult spell, he'd only be able to do it once – and, when he was ready, cast it at Hroggar. He felt that alien presence struggle again, but in vain. The spell held. He turned back to Alva and Serana.

Serana had left herself open, when she helped Alexien. Alva now held both her wrists, and had pushed her back against the wall. “ _Bitch!_ ” she was screaming in Serana's face, “What business was this of yours?” And her fangs started to close on Serana's throat.

He threw a bolt of fire, but it was weaker than he had intended; the flame struck Alva in the side of her face and burned away part of hair and seared her skin, but left her very much alive. She snarled.

Serana, back against the wall, lifted up her legs and pushed her feet against Alva's abdomen. Alva lost her grip and was thrown back. Her face was contorted with rage.

Alexien was breathing hard, knew he was running out of magicka, but didn't have time to stoop to pick up his sword. He stood with his feet apart, raised both arms, and reached deep inside himself, looking for the last scraps of power, touching his panic and his fury and pulling them into the spell. _She killed Hroggar's family. She broke Laelette. She tried to hurt Serana_. At this last thought, the anger surged up in answer. He took that anger, welcomed it, set it aflame; he channeled it down through his arms, into his hands, and threw everything at Alva.

She burned.

Alexien fell to his knees, his vision blurring. He felt Serana grab his shoulders, heard her say something, he couldn't tell what. She reached a hand into his bag – _his_ bag – and rummaged around, pulled out a potion in a blue bottle, pressed it against his lips. He drank.

A few seconds later, he could see her face clearly. She looked worried.

“I'm fine,” he gasped.

“Don't be stupid. Both those spells were way above your level.”

“I'm fine,” he said again, trying to make his voice firmer. He stood up shakily.

The spell had worn off Hroggar, who was staring at Alva's body with horror. They tried to comfort him. Alexien wasn't sure he even knew they were there. Serana's eyes were hard, her lips pressed thin. She cast a spell to help him sleep, to keep away the nightmares – at least for that night.

They took a few minutes looking around the house. There was an honest-to-Arkay coffin in the basement. Alexien wanted to make some sarcastic comment about the obviousness, but didn't feel like speaking. They found nothing else of importance.

“We'll tell the jarl in the morning,” he said to Serana as they left. She nodded.

“You go ahead, go back and get some sleep,” she told him. “I'll be there in a little while.”

He started back wearily, but heard her voice again: “Alexien. I know it doesn't feel like it, but we did good tonight.”

He nodded, mumbled something, and headed back to the hall.

* * *

She slipped from shadow to shadow under the eaves of the houses. The darkness was comfortable. She was hungry, yes... but she also just wanted to be out, to be alone, to clear her head. There was no one else around; she could think.

Well – almost no one. She saw a figure, only just less stealthy than herself, exit one of the houses, look around, and set off towards the swamp. He wore robes and carried a staff. This had to be the conjurer, Falion, that the townspeople had said so much about. One of the rumors had been that he crept off into the swamp in the middle of the night to perform dark rituals. And here he was.

Curiosity got the better of her, and she followed.

She stayed some distance behind, and followed him into a clearing, where the ground was firm. There was some kind of structure there. She looked more closely: there was a stone circle with a raised platform in the middle; around it and over it loomed stone pillars, worn with age. Something about them set her on edge.

Falion was standing just in front of the stone circle. He lowered his hood, and raised his arms high for a moment, as if in prayer. Then, without turning, he spoke: “Be welcome, child.”

Serana stepped out into the clearing. “I'm not a child. I'm much older than you, in fact.”

“No, you are not.”

For some reason, she believed him. Something about him was... unearthly. She felt like she could talk freely to him; it wasn't like confiding in a person.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He considered his answer. “You and your friend have done well tonight,” he said. “You have parried one of the Enemy's attacks. But he has others. There are plots within plots, wheels within wheels. He can afford to wait.”

“Who do you mean?”

“I think you know.”

A familiar chill settled on Serana's heart. Falion nodded. “The Lord of Lies,” he said, “has many pawns on the board. He loses one, but perhaps the loss furthers his aims elsewhere. Indeed, even now, Morthal is not safe.”

“We never found Alva's master,” said Serana.

“Nor will you. He is another pawn on the board, but the task of blocking him is for... others. You have a different part to play.”

Serana chose not to reply to that. She looked around at the stone remnants, and asked, “What is this place?”

Again, he took a long time to answer. “Once,” he said, “the Enemy attempted to pull Nirn into his own realm. He was defeated. But wherever in this world his power was anchored, there he is still at his strongest, and also his most vulnerable.”

“You keep calling him that,” said Serana. “But I am a Daughter of Coldharbour.”

“Lie to me if you wish, and lie to your companion if you must. But be honest with yourself.”

Serana bit her lip, and said nothing.

“I wish you safe travels tomorrow, Lady Serana,” he said. “But I must take your leave. I have work to do here that may not wait.”

Serana looked once more over the eerie stone circle, and shivered. She bowed, turned, and went back to Morthal.

When she got back to the hall, she found Alexien already asleep. He had taken the bed this time. She said nothing to wake him, but quietly pulled the covers back, climbed into bed opposite him, and tried to sleep.


	4. Bloodline

The next morning, they told the jarl about Alva. She seemed eerily unsurprised, and took Serana's word for it that she had been a vampire. All the same, she sent some guards to take possession of the body. They did not mention Laelette.

“You have my thanks, and the thanks of all Morthal,” said Jarl Idgrod. “It's only a shame you weren't able to discover who was behind Alva.”

Alexien shrugged. “It's a shame the villains don't leave behind diaries and letters detailing all their plans.”

The jarl gave them both a pouch of gold, and ordered her steward to enroll the both as honorary citizens of the hold, bidding them both be welcome forever. Alexien caught Serana smirking at that.

The morning sun was bright as they left the town – much too bright, thought Serana, pulling her hood lower over her eyes; but it did make the swamp barely dismal at all. They followed the road west, and the scenery gradually turned more rugged. Cliffs fell away from the road on their left or right, and in the distance ahead the jagged mountains of the Reach stabbed up into the sky.

Serana was in her element, and was constantly stopping to admire one view or another. The low mountains around Solitude were nothing like this. Alexien explained casually that these were younger, less weathered, less worn down by the centuries. She ignored him, and chose instead to examine the junipers; she had tasted the berries as a spice before, but never actually seen the trees. Again Alexien explained that this was the furthest extent of their northward range, and again she ignored him.

Actually, she noticed, with a frown, he wasn't saying much at all, except for the occasional prosaic comments. She decided to ask what was wrong.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Just... thinking.”

Serana raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess that was worse than saying nothing, wasn't it?”

“Way worse. So now you _have_ to tell me.”

He shrugged. This might be awkward. “I... was thinking about last night.”

“Still shaken up?” she asked. “I did have to save your life three times.”

“Oh, come on, it was once, at we're even for that one.”

She grinned at him.

“Anyway,” he coughed. “I'm just... processing. Alva and Laelette were both so different. And you're – not like either of them,” he finished awkwardly.

Serana stopped and faced him squarely. “Ah, that's what it is,” she said. “You thought we would all be exactly the same. One bloodthirsty monster is much like another, right?”

“No, that's not –”

“Yes, it is.”

He glared at her. What did she know? Then he sighed, and remembered: about this, a lot. “All right, sort of. Not intellectually, but... it's what I unconsciously expected.”

“Because you thought the hunger would consume us, devour whatever individuality we had before, right?”

“That's not –” He stopped. For some reason he preferred not to think about, he wanted to be sincere with her. Even if she were disappointed, she deserved honesty. “Yes.”

“You'd be right, in a lot of cases. Some of us are twisted fucks.”

He looked up in surprise. She was staring at him seriously.

“Not because we're vampires,” she said, slowly. “Because they were already twisted fucks before, and then some other twisted fuck of a vampire gave them power and immortality, and suddenly they didn't have to be afraid to show what they were.” Her gaze turned hard. “Listen up, because I'm only going to explain this exactly once before I go back to making fun of you. Yes, some lose themselves to the hunger, allow themselves to become mindless killing machines. They're the ones that didn't care anything about other people anyway. But we can choose not to be like that. It's not easy. But we can.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I... I think I understand that. From you, I mean.”

She snorted. “You think I'm one of the good ones?”

“Of course,” he said. “You let Brynhild go, and you convinced me to spare Laelette. And you still haven't killed me, which, by the way, is one of my favorite things about you.” He looked at her more seriously. “Don't you think so?”

Serana was silent a moment. “I'm... not always sure, to be honest,” she said. “Maybe. But you'd be stupid to assume it just because I haven't been nibbling on your throat yet. That you know of.” Her expression turned back to its familiar playfulness. “Now enough of that. Come on, I'm going to go stare at the view from this cliff, and if you ruin it for me again I swear to the Eight I'm chucking you off.”

“Now what did I _just_ say about not killing me?” he asked.

“What did _I_ just say about not ruining it for me?” she shot back, but smiled.

After that, it was like Morthal had never happened, and they were traveling and joking together as before. No – that wasn't quite right, thought Alexien; something had changed in Morthal. Since they had met Brynhild, in fact, it was like a barrier between them had dissolved. He was starting to trust her, rely on her. That... probably wasn't good. But it was more than that: he had started to think of her as almost a friend; not “the vampire I made a deal with and who will probably kill me” but “Serana, who I am traveling with and who I can rely on for help.” In Morthal, he had been angry when Alva hurt her, angry enough to be able to use it to fuel a fire spell with almost no magicka left. He hadn't noticed that until now. How hadn't he noticed that until now? That was concerning. Could she be influencing him after all? Surely Serana wouldn't... but then, for goodness' sake, he had just been trying to reassure a _vampire_ that she was a good person, because she hadn't killed another vampire. He held on to that thought. It made the least sense. She _had_ to be influencing his mind somehow. But then he looked over, and saw her watching him with a quizzical expression; then she smiled, and he felt himself smiling back.

 _Yeah, this definitely isn't ending well for me_ , he thought.

And yet the rest of the day did, to all appearances, go quite well. They made their usual slow progress, stopping to enjoy any fine view that presented itself. Once they passed Nordic ruins again, where they paused to look over the outside and debate the function of a few unusual structures. At some point the debate stopped being serious and turned into a series of sarcastic jabs at one another, but he couldn't tell when that had happened.

It was late when they entered the town of Dragon Bridge. They would be in Solitude tomorrow, and then it would only be another day or two to Serana's home. That thought he pushed away. The town was charming, and it had an actual inn, where they were actually welcome. Alexien remembered how uncomfortable Serana had seemed that first night, around so many people; but for whatever reason, she was enjoying herself now. They finished off a bottle of wine in the common area, and even drank with a few particularly friendly locals who invited them to share their table, and stayed up talking and laughing late into the night. One of their new acquaintances was a miner, and Alexien was warmed enough by the wine to spend most of his remaining energy transmuting a small lump of iron ore they had into silver; they laughed with delight and said maybe magic wasn't all Daedra-worship after all. He was exhausted afterwards, but he caught Serana watching him with fascination and it was worth it.

They set out early the next morning. Much too early for Alexien's taste: his head pounded, but apparently vampires (right, she was a vampire, he reminded himself) were immune to hangovers, because Serana was nothing but bright and cheery all morning. Maybe brighter and a bit louder than normal, in fact, as if she meant to tease him for not handling his alcohol. She probably did. But they walked faster than normal, and didn't even stop to look at an imposing stone building that rose up just beside the road, which Alexien said was an old temple to Meridia. Serana shook her head and pointed forwards: in the distance, she could see the towers of Solitude.

When they went through the towering gates and the city opened before them, row after row of high stone buildings, huge, busy, bustling, Serana only stared, mouth open in a faint _Wow._ She stood just inside the entrance, too amazed to mind the people sliding by around her and giving her ugly looks, too amazed to make a sarcastic comment when Alexien tripped over a crate, if she even noticed. Finally she turned to him, grinning a genuine and oblivious grin. She opened her mouth and tried to say something, but gave up and just grabbed his arm and pulled him into the city behind her.

Most of the afternoon he spent following her through the maze of streets. He had no idea where she was leading him – she probably didn't know herself, and was wandering aimlessly, delighted with everything she saw. The passed Castle Dour and went by the bards' college and looked on the eaves of the Blue Palace; and when she remembered he was there she explained, _here_ was where the hero in one of her stories had made his last stand, _here_ another had sung a song that made the gods themselves weep, _here_ in this garden the princess had met her lover in secret, here, here, here, and she was actually seeing it, standing where they had stood. Alexien had never seen anyone so unselfconsciously happy.

They rented a room, but Serana barely slept all night and got him up early again in the morning. This time Alexien lead the way, and they found a plaza ringed with booksellers' stalls. She immediately seemed to forget all about him again and attacked the piles of books with eager greed. Alexien bought a few old manuscripts and one rather worn codex, which purported to be a collection of correspondence from the early Fourth Era, containing letters between the Archmage of Winterhold and various figures in the dying Mages' Guild and the new Synod. He was confident these were mostly forgeries, but even so they might deserve a place in the Arcaneum. When he found Serana again, she had exchanged all the gold from Jarl Idgrod for a precariously tall stack of books, and looked very pleased with the trade. They found a bench in the shade and sat reading together silently.

Wordlessly, without looking up, Serana passed him a book from her own pile. It was a novel about a princess from Wayrest. Home. She had seen it and remembered him making a passing comment about where he was from, and bought it for him.

They opted to stay one more night in Solitude, and leave the next morning. But the next morning Serana did not wake him as early as before. The sun was a quarter of its way across the sky before they left the gates of the city behind them. Alexien tried to talk and banter with her as they had been, but she seemed to be in no mood. As the day wore on her answers grew shorter and shorter, and finally she only responded with a nod or shake of the head, or a monosyllable. Alexien felt a weight in his stomach and wondered what he had said to offend her.

That evening they camped on the coast, since Serana said they were still almost a day's walk from her home. The air was bitter, and they only had a sad little fire. Serana still barely spoke.

Alexien looked over at her, sitting forlorn by the fire, and gathered his nerves. “Serana?”

No answer.

“If there's anything you want to talk about,” he said, “I'm here.”

No answer again.

He should leave her alone, he thought. She didn't want to talk. But this sudden change from the previous day bothered him more than he wanted to admit, so instead he tried to guess what might be bothering her. She had only turned distant since they had left Solitude. Maybe... “You don't have to do this,” he said quietly. “Go back. Not if you don't want to.”

She looked up at him.

“We could just leave,” he went on. “Go somewhere else.”

“Together, you mean?” He wished he could read her expression.

“If... if you want to.” Now his heart was pounding.

She stared at him a moment, then turned her gaze back to the fire. “No.”

And he could get nothing more out of her that night. Maybe that was for the best, he tried to tell himself.

The next morning, they lingered around the campsite before setting off. The sun was overcast, and Alexien couldn't tell the grey sky from the grey seas. The air was wet and cold and smelled of salt. Oddly, Serana seemed somewhat cheered by the weather: she at least talked more than the previous day, even if it was without much humor. As they walked, Alexien would make an occasional comment about whatever came to mind, and then Serana would reply politely; but mostly he gave her space, and she stared pensively into the distance.

He reassured himself that if she were planning to turn on him, she would be keeping up the friendly facade until the last moment. But that wasn't what troubled him.

Finally Serana stopped and turned aside from the road, towards a rocky beach. There was a small boat pulled up onto the shore. When she saw it, she let out a sigh of relief.

“It's still here,” she said.

“Oh,” said Alexien. “It looks kind of small for a family home.”

“It's not – ugh,” she muttered; but she gave him a half-smile. “The boat is to take us there, unless you'd like to swim.”

“Not particularly.” He watched her carefully. “You said your home is on the coast.”

“It is. Just not this coast.” She pointed across the bleak waves. Alexien could just make out a faint haze on the horizon that might mean land. “That one.”

“Cheerful,” he said. “I didn't realize you had your own island.”

Serena shrugged. They stood there silently a moment, then she stepped into the boat and sat down. She looked at him expectantly. After only a little hesitation he got in and sat opposite her.

“You can still back out of this,” she said.

Gods knew he should. It started to sink in where he was going. And Serana hadn't exactly been encouraging. But what he said was “Not a chance. You can't just grab me by the curiosity and yank me around all over Skyrim and then weasel out of actually telling me anything.”

She looked at him a moment, and again he wished he could read her expression. She reached down and put a hand on the boat, and said something he didn't quite hear, and the boat cast itself off from the shore and sped towards the island.

“So,” she started, and then fell silent.

“So,” he filled in, “now that you have me where I can't run away, it's time for you to reveal your true colors and tell me what horrors are in store for me?”

She snorted, then took a deep breath. “Something like that. No, now that we're where _I_ can't run away or put it off anymore, it's time for me to apologize.”

“For what?”

“You're either impressively polite or embarrassingly oblivious.”

“Nonsense. I could be both.”

She snorted again, and cracked a smile. “You're right, probably both. But come on, I know I haven't exactly been great company the last couple of days. I've just had a lot on my mind. But I'm sorry.”

The boat skipped on through the sea, and the island was coming into clearer view alarmingly quickly. Were those towers? “Apology accepted,” said Alexien. “Serana, if there's something on your mind you want to talk about...”

“I... thank you, I appreciate that,” she said. “But I'm fine. Look, I'm grateful to you for getting me this far. No, not just that. I mean, I've been enjoying traveling with you. And Solitude was wonderful.”

“But?”

“But... we've been getting closer and closer to home, and there are a lot of old feelings wrapped up in this place, and I'm not sure you're ready for them. I'm going to need some time alone. Once we're in there I'm going to go my own way for a while. I think.”

“You might have mentioned this _before_ I got in the creepy cursed boat.” He raised an eyebrow at her. He expected her to smile, laugh, make a joke about killing and eating him: like the old Serana.

She shook her head seriously. “It's not like that,” she said. “It's not. And don't worry, I'll make sure you're treated like a guest. My father... er, he might even want to _reward_ you, actually.” She looked momentarily repulsed, and then worried. “And no one will hurt you. Probably.”

“ _Probably_?”

“No, you're definitely safe as long as you're with me,” said Serana. She seemed to be trying to convince herself.

“Serana –”

“Just let me do the talking and follow my lead and everything will be okay,” she said quickly. _Gods_ , she thought, _why did I think this was a good idea? If my father..._

They were suddenly jolted out of their seats: the boat had beached itself on the island. Alexien stepped out of the boat at once, and looked up, and his jaw fell open.

“Home sweet... castle,” Serana said from behind him.

A castle. Her family home was a castle. He was going to a vampire castle on a private vampire island. Splendid. While not particularly religious, he closed his eyes and said a short mental prayer to Arkay. He wondered if the god had a sense of humor.

“It's nice,” he said. “I wonder where they got all the black stone.” And the dozen gargoyles he saw around the entrance.

Serana moved up beside him. “Welcome to Castle Volkihar,” she said, with obvious distaste. He turned to look at her, and for once had no trouble reading her expression: warring emotions, discomfort, conflict. His frustration started to fade. Slowly.

“You introduced yourself as 'of the Volkihar' at Morthal,” he remembered.

“Our clan,” she explained. “And I mean literally ours. My father is the head. He, um, look, there are a few things you should know. First off, yes, the castle is my home, and yes, my father is the one in charge, and yes, I'm his only child. But it's not... me. I know I haven't exactly been honest with you about this, and I'm sorry for that, but I didn't want you to think I'm one of those women who just sit in a castle all day. Being waited on hand and foot by servants. That's not who I am. I mean, it is, but it isn't, if that makes any sense at all. I hope you can believe that.” _Stop rambling, Serana_ , she told herself.

Alexien stared up at the midnight-black spires, then back at Serana. She looked... vulnerable? “I believe you.”

“Thank you,” she sighed. He couldn't decide if she looked more relieved or nervous. “And... look, the second thing is... my father and I don't really get along. Ugh, it sounds so common when I say it like that. What I mean is, my father isn't exactly a good person. Even by vampire standards. I haven't been here in a long time, and I don't know exactly what we're going to see in there, but it's not going to be anything you or any mortal would consider good.”

He nodded.

“I mean it,” she said. “There are going to be a lot of vampires in there. Not all of them will be like me. There will be thralls, and... feeding. It could be gruesome. I'm not sure – it's not really a place for you.”

“Then why did you invite me here?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

She looked down, and her hands were playing with the hem of her cloak awkwardly. “I wasn't thinking this far ahead,” she said. “And... at the time I didn't really care what happened to you.”

“And you do now?”

“I don't think they'll hurt you if you're with me,” she said, ignoring the question, and turning her eyes back to him again. “Or I hope not. But even if they don't, my father... that is, it may be smarter not to risk it. I think” – she paused – “I think you should seriously consider staying here. Or just leaving. You promised to bring me safely home. Here I am. You've done enough.”

He looked at her, then up again at the looming gatehouse. She was right, of course. He really, _really_ didn't want to walk into an ancient vampire fortress. Beyond any doubt, there were things inside that wanted to eat him, and mage or not he wouldn't be able to stop them. Serana felt so human, and even frustrated with her as he was, he almost believed in her sincerity. But he had met other vampires enough to know she was the exception. Mostly they didn't talk as much and committed a lot more attempted murder. The only prudent thing to do would be to thank Serana for her kindness, bid her farewell, and turn on his heels and run like Oblivion.

Then he glanced back to Serana. She still stood there, watching his face. Expectantly. Nervously waiting on his answer. And suddenly he knew, as certainly as he had ever known anything in his life, that he wasn't going to leave her here alone.

He sighed. It figured that this would be how he'd die.

“No,” he said, “I'm going in with you.”

“If you're sure,” she said slowly. “You don't have to.”

“Yeah. I do.”

She gave him a grateful look, then turned back to the entrance. “Right. Okay. Good. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to walking in there alone. I'm glad there'll be at least one friendly face.” She took a moment to collect herself. “I still mean what I said, about needing some time alone for a while after this. But it won't be forever, I promise.”

He nodded.

“Remember, stay close to me, let me take the lead, and everything will probably be okay.”

He nodded again.

“Right,” she said. She seemed to make a decision, and started walking forwards. “Let's go meet my father.”

* * *

Afterwards, Alexien didn't remember walking through the gatehouse. He vaguely had a sense that someone had stopped them, and Serana had said something, and the portcullis had been raised, the doors had been opened, and suddenly they were inside the castle. But he had been too busy watching Serana, and thinking about his impending death.

Once in the castle, however, his pride reasserted itself. For one of the few times in his life he was glad to have been raised in a noble house. This was just another presentation at another castle, just another meeting with another head of another old family. A dozen generations of inborn manners reassured him that he had no need to be hesitant or nervous. He knew how to act here.

A lifetime of wizardry further reassured him that he was at least the equal of anyone here in terms of raw power. Vampires, he reminded himself, were actually quite frail things, magically speaking. The metaphysical threads that bound them to this plane were thin and frayed. Theoretically. Not that it would help him in a fight in any practical way; but _they_ were the outsiders here, not him. He belonged here.

So it was that, even though his heart was pounding, he looked outwardly calm and confident when they entered the main hall. His steps barely faltered, his breath barely caught, when he got his first look.

 _Gruesome_ didn't begin to cover it. Like in any lord's hall, there was a high table on a raised dais at the other end of the room, and several other long tables perpendicular to it. At least a dozen vampires sat at the tables, and a few others stood around the high table. About a dozen more human thralls – they couldn't be anything else, with those blank unseeing stares – were squeezed up against the walls. But on the tables were people.

Or what had been people. They were messes of blood and tissue, ripped open, torn, mutilated. Some vampires held golden goblets up to flowing arteries, and drank deeply and daintily, grasping the stem very properly with but two elegant fingers. Some, at the lower tables, lapped at bleeding entrails. One or two stroked the faces, and bent down to search for unwounded flesh to bite.

Some clinical part of Alexien's brain, detached from his numb horror, logically pointed out that, if the victims' arteries were still pumping out blood, they were still alive.

Serana nudged him. He looked up and saw a figure rising from the high table, walking towards them. It could only be Serana's father. He thought he saw the family resemblance, and it sickened him to see such blank cruelty on those familiar features.

“My long-lost daughter returns,” he said slowly, in a carrying voice. He had an old-fashioned accent that Alexien associated, for some reason, with archaic prayers at temple services; but the comparison was blasphemous. The eyes of everyone on the hall were on him. He was dressed in the same style of clothes as Serana. “Welcome home, beloved. I trust you have my Elder Scroll?”

Something shifted in Serana's stance. “After all the years, that's the first thing you ask me,” she said quietly; then, projecting her voice as if speaking to the hall rather than her father, “Yes, I have the scroll.”

“Must I say the words aloud?” he asked. “Of course I am delighted to see you, my daughter. I would be still more delighted if your mother were here to see our reunion. She could watch from the stake upon which she will be impaled.”

Serana pressed her lips then. She was searching for what to say; but before she could answer, her father turned to Alexien. He felt the eyes of everyone in the hall on him now, as if given permission to see him.

“And who is this stranger you have brought to my hall?”

“This is Alexien of Winterhold, my savior,” said Serana quickly; then, more firmly: “He freed me, and agreed to bring me home. He has saved my life more than once.”

That was a _slight_ exaggeration, thought Alexien, and she had saved his life too, but he wasn't about to correct her here.

Her father gave him a courtly bow, but somehow it was mocking. “I am Harkon, and I am lord and master here. Be welcome, Alexien of Winterhold; I name you guest.”

He felt Serana watching him. He gave Harkon a deep bow. “I thank you, Lord Harkon,” he said, in his best courtier's voice. “The Lady Serana has told me much of the hospitality of your court, but too little worthy of its grandeur.”

One of the bleeding thralls gave a moan of pain, quickly silenced.

Harkon made a gesture, and a servant materialized at Alexien's side, bearing a tray with a golden cup on it. He picked it up and examined it.

“Wine for our guest,” said Harkon simply.

Alexien, out of the corner of his eye, saw Serana give him a very slight nod. He inclined his head to Harkon and took a drink of the wine. It was surprisingly good.

“This vintage comes from the valley of the Niben, unless I am much mistaken,” he told Harkon. “It is a rare treasure to find in Skyrim.”

“We are always glad to welcome men of culture to our court,” said Harkon. Again, somehow there was a sneer behind the words. He motioned to Serana, who left Alexien's side – perhaps somewhat unhappily, he told himself – and went to stand behind her father.

“Now,” said Harkon, and Alexien's attention was pulled away from Serana, “I presume that my so enchanting daughter has told you what we are.”

“She has, Lord Harkon.”

“Good. Watching the initial horror of realization can be tedious. But did she tell you the full measure of our greatness?”

What a fucking poser.

And yet something about him – even from across the room, even without trying to, Alexien could feel Harkon's aura radiating off him like waves of chill heat, dark, ancient, fell. He had power even above his pretensions. Alexien thought of spiders and locked rooms and biting chains and the smell of rust. He thought of Daedra.

“No, Lord.”

“We are not just vampires. We are among the oldest and most powerful vampires in Tamriel. In all Skyrim there is not our like. For many ages we have lived here, far from the cares of mortality. Until my wife stole that which I value above all else.”

Alexien knew he did not mean his daughter.

“Now,” said Harkon, and he projected his voice again to the entire hall, as if he were on a stage. “You have done me – us – a great service. You must be suitably rewarded.”

Serana was watching Alexien, but her face gave nothing away.

“There is but one gift I can offer,” continued Harkon, “that is worthy recompense for the return of an Elder Scroll. And the rescue of my daughter.” He spread his hands wide, in a grand gesture. “I offer you my blood,” he said dramatically.

Alexien did not have to feign his confusion. “Your blood, Lord?”

Harkon did not hide his annoyance. His moment of drama had been ruined. “You have doubtless encountered those wretched creatures that call themselves vampires, and you think we are like them. What they are, they have contracted as a disease, an infection. We are not so. Our blood must be willingly given as drink. Then you shall be flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, blood of our blood.”

What he was saying sunk in. Alexien managed not to show his revulsion, barely. “You would make me like yourself.”

“Take my blood,” said Harkon, “and walk as a lion among sheep. You will be clad in glory, and men will tremble at your approach. Take it, and your enemies shall melt like wax before you. Take it, and you need never fear death again.”

Alexien did not dare raise his eyes to Serana. She did not look at him. But he could have sworn that he saw her give the barest possible shake of her head.

He bowed again to Harkon, and forced calm into his voice. “Lord Harkon, you honor me above my deserts. Truly, I need no recompense for doing a kindness to your daughter, to whom rather I should offer reward for her kindness to me. My host, with all gratitude I accept your hospitality, but in all humility I decline this gift that is too great for me.”

He dared to glance at Serana. She smiled once – or did he imagine it? – and turned away from him.

“So be it,” came Harkon's voice. “Like all mortals, you are weak. Like all mortals, you are prey. Tonight and tonight only I spare your life; consider yourself thus rewarded, and be glad of it! But I banish you forever from this hall. I revoke your welcome, I unname you guest. Begone, and never return!”

And suddenly, somehow, Alexien found himself again outside the castle, near where Serana and he had landed. It seemed days ago. He shivered. He cast another glance up at the castle, and wondered what he felt; then he turned and walked away.

And that was the end of that.


	5. A New Order

In her dream, he accepted.

She saw him as he had really been that day, standing upright and proud in front of her father, in front of the entire court. Only his heartbeat gave away his fear. Her father spread his arms wide, and offered Alexien his blood. She could only watch. She tried to tell him _No_ – she didn't know why – but her tongue would not obey. She could only watch. And he knelt before her father, and pledged his life and his fealty. And then Harkon made him one of them.

Why the dream had troubled her, Serana couldn't tell. Besides, what had she expected? That Alexien would move into the castle? Perhaps that he might stay a few days, at least. But as himself. Yet that, she knew, was impossible. She had told him, truly, the castle was no place for him. Yes, it would have been nice to keep him around, so that she might have at least one ally in the castle, at least one friend. But not like _that_. Not bound to her father.

But all these thoughts she pushed away. He was gone now, but he was at least alive, which was more than she ought to have expected. Their agreement had been fulfilled. More or less. And she had much more pressing concerns than keeping her word to some mortal who'd be dead in a few decades anyway.

On coming home, she had hoped – she didn't know what she hoped. But it wasn't what she found. Of course, the first thing her father said to her was to demand back his precious Elder Scroll: his obsession was unchanged. And of course, the second was to threaten her mother: his hate was steadfast. She supposed she should consider herself lucky he didn't order her be seized and executed as soon as she stepped through the gates. But she didn't feel it. She knew her welcome was an act, that she was really just an honored prisoner; and she knew that _he knew_ she knew.

He had taken the Scroll, on pretense of keeping her things safe for her while she washed off the dirt of travel. She found fresh clothes laid out for her, and next to her bed was the pack with all the books she had bought at Solitude, but the Scroll was gone. She picked up one of the books. Her father's scent was on it. He had been going through her things. She was annoyed at herself for feeling hurt.

She was annoyed at herself, again, for her disappointment when she found her mother wasn't at the castle. She knew she wouldn't be: Serana wouldn't have been left so long in that crypt if her parents had made up. But still a little voice had kept whispering to her, _Just maybe_. She hated that little voice, so hopeful and so naive.

So her first priority was finding out what had happened to her mother. She wasn't dead: her father had given that much away, and he was many odious things, but a good liar was not among them. So Valerica was alive, somewhere else. That was good. Serana tried to get more information. She could be charming and winsome if she had to be, even towards Harkon's thrice-damned court of narcissistic sycophants. So, after dinner (for her father always insisted she eat dinner with them in the hall, like a proper lord's daughter) she would make polite conversation, maybe invite someone to accompany her on a walk around the castle so she could interrogate them in private.

No one knew anything.

She had tried Vingalmo first. He was her father's right hand, the cleverest of all his servants, the most trusted with operations that required delicacy. He was also such a self-important know-it-all that Serana was sure he wouldn't be able to keep quiet if he knew something. He had no information whatsoever about her mother, not since the day when Valerica and Serana had both left the castle. He was either much more subtle than Serana gave him credit for, or else just as ignorant as he seemed. She decided on ignorant.

So it went for everyone else. Orthjolf was brash but honest, more likely than Vingalmo to keep a secret, but also easier to confuse and trip up if he were lying. He wasn't: he knew nothing. Rargal, meanwhile, was just bemused she even approached him, and would gladly have told her everything she wanted, would have cut out his own tongue, for a chance to gain her favor. Garan Marethi seemed to think she was flirting with him, which she might have been able to make use of; but he was so insufferable about it that she decided, even if he did know something, it wasn't worth it. Besides, as a last resort she could always have him tortured. That at least made her smile.

So she came up with nothing. All she knew was that Harkon was just as obsessed with the blasted prophecy as he had ever been. If anything, more so, now that he had both the Elder Scroll and Serana in his possession again.

He had walked into her room one night shortly after her arrival, without so much as knocking. She was sitting up in bed, hair still disheveled from the day's sleep (and how nice it was to be sleeping during the day again!), reading one of the new books from Solitude: _The Horror of Castle Xyr_. The irony appealed to her. Meanwhile the unread stack on her table had been diminishing at a dangerous and unsustainable rate; she had finished the last volume of _Mystery of Talara_ a few days after arriving home.

As soon as she saw him come in, she had reflexively slammed the pages shut and tried to do something with her hair. He had always hated it whenever her appearance didn't fit what he thought proper for the Lord's Daughter. Or when she read. Or talked to her mother. Or did much of anything for herself, really. He had made that painfully clear in the past.

“My dearest daughter Serana,” he had said. “It is so nice to have you home again, after so long.” He said it like he had rehearsed it. Then, without waiting for her to respond, he walked over and picked up the book. His mouth curled into a mixture of a frown and a sneer.

“Trash like this is unworthy of us,” he said.

“I found it to be enjoyable trash,” she said defensively.

“No doubt,” he said with that same sneer. “But it matters not whether you _enjoy_ it; only whether it is proper for us. You have a higher destiny, of which you have never been mindful.” When she didn't respond, he went on, “You've always had a regrettable habit of playing with your food, but really, consorting with mortals... I blame your mother for removing you from my care. That must stop. You are home now, and here you will stay.”

“For how long?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

He held her gaze a moment. “Until I decide otherwise.” And without another word, he walked out.

At least outwardly, Serana's status had not changed after that. But she found herself increasingly isolated. Several times she walked into a room, and conversation died. As the weeks passed, everyone grew more and more on edge, as if waiting for something. She knew she was being watched, that someone was always following her. She pretended to be oblivious. Unlike her father, she was a good liar. But she knew she was still distrusted, still kept from knowing what was going on. And something was definitely going on. They were all making preparations. They were getting ready for something big.

That wasn't good. But she couldn't stop them. Even her mother hadn't been able to stop them. And she wasn't there anymore, and Serana was alone. She had no ally in the castle, no friend, nobody she could trust. There was nowhere she could turn for help, and no one who would help her.

 _Or_ , that stupid naive voice kept whispering to her, _maybe there is._

* * *

After much deliberation, and carefully writing out all the pros and cons in a list and weighing them all in a nice rational manner, Alexien went back to the Dawnguard.

Pro: There were still vampires running amok, and the Dawnguard was fighting them. Con: He had been traveling (and been seen traveling) with one vampire and had let another one go.

Pro: The vampires had an Elder Scroll, and someone needed to do something about that. Con: He had all but handed it to them himself.

Pro: They needed his help to protect Skyrim, whether they knew it or not. Con: He was sick of Skyrim and wanted to go back to Winterhold, where he could pretend he wasn't in Skyrim.

In the end, because the pros were all altruistic and the cons were all selfish, he sighed and turned his feet towards the south, and only berated himself for it a few times a day.

His welcome hadn't exactly been warm, when he told them (a very small and carefully curated selection of) what he had seen.

“They have an _Elder Scroll_?” Isran had demanded furiously. “And you just let them keep it?”

“I was outnumbered and outmatched,” Alexien had said simply. “If I had tried anything, I would be dead, and you would still be in the dark.”

And that was true. But it wasn't the real reason. In truth, it had simply never occurred to him to try to stop Serana by force. And that confirmed what he had suspected about her from that very first night: she was a supremely good manipulator.

 _Ah_ , a little voice whispered to him, _but then why are you still alive?_

That little voice had been annoying lately. He pushed it away.

It didn't help that part of him was also worried about her. She had seemed genuinely happy with him, and had only grown more miserable the closer she got to home. And she hadn't been comfortable at the castle, however she tried to hide it. Castle Volkihar was a monstrous place, and Harkon was a monster – and she had clearly thought so too. Nothing in all Mundus could have induced him to abandon her there voluntarily. Yes, he was still worried for her. _But that's what she's good at_ , he told himself.

The rest of the Dawnguard, at least, had been happier to see him. They hated vampires more than they feared magic, and were willing enough to have a mage to point at their enemies. There was even a handful of other survivors from the Vigilants, who welcomed him with more genuine gladness.

Of course, one of those Vigilants was Brynhild. She had asked him, full of concern, why he was there, what had happened between him and his beloved Katrin. He just told her that it hadn't worked out, and hoped there was enough hurt in his voice to keep her from inquiring further. There was, and she didn't; but he knew she didn't quite believe him.

Fantastic.

Thankfully he hadn't been asked to join any combat missions. The Dawnguard, Isran had said proudly, had plenty of members who could take on a vampire in a fight (not quite true), but only one spellcaster (completely true). So Alexien spent most of his time with them gathering information and conducting research, or else brewing potions, casting wards around the fortress, and creating protective enchantments on bits of armor. He was also, Isran had admitted grudgingly, by far the most tactful and diplomatic person there (true beyond any shadow of doubt), so he was occasionally sent to the Jarl of Riften to ask for her support (meaning: beg for supplies). She was always happy to help such a worthy cause (meaning: pay the crazy weirdos to leave her alone).

Similarly, they had asked him to help recruit a few people Isran thought would be useful. This turned out to be much more difficult than persuading the Jarl to send supplies, because Isran seemed to have mortally offended everyone he had ever met. There was Gunmar, a big brute of a Nord, whom Isran had apparently called undisciplined and unreliable. But as soon as Alexien had mentioned vampires, his eyes darkened, and he promised to do all he could to help. Then there was Florentius, a half-mad priest of Arkay whom Isran had laughed at and mocked. He rejected Alexien's request at first, but changed his mind when, apparently, the god Arkay himself told him – actually told him, he claimed, audibly, with words and everything – to accept and go to Fort Dawnguard. Alexien wasn't entirely glad of this success.

Then there was Sorine Jurard, another Breton, to whom Isran had once made it very clear that he neither needed nor wanted her help ( _By the Eight, is there anyone this man hasn't insulted?_ ). She had looked Alexien over and disliked him at once.

“Magnus's eye,” she said, in a Daggerfall accent, “can I not get away from you wizard princelings even in Skyrim?”

“We're everywhere, I'm afraid,” he said. “And actually my family never made it higher than the marquisate, and my father is only a baron.”

“Yes, thank you for making my point for me. Now if you don't mind, I'm experimenting with some rather delicate and complicated Dwemer machinery, and the last thing I need is a posh ponce in silk smallclothes mucking up my calculations.”

He liked her immediately. She didn't have a drop of magic in her, but made up for it with intelligence and ingenuity. She was a respected scholar of Dwemer engineering. And it wasn't her fault she was Glenumbran.

So the Dawnguard grew, and had some successes – not least, Alexien thought, because there were now more reasonable heads around to check Isran's monomania.

Alexien had also been practicing his magic more seriously every night. He had, he knew, an impressive knowledge of lore and arcane theory, especially for someone his age. And he could pull off some big complicated effects. But when he had been traveling with – with _her_ , he had overspent his magicka and run himself dry more than once. That couldn't happen in another fight. He needed to work on his focus and his control.

So he had started practicing every night, conjuring a small flame or shard of ice and seeing how long he could maintain the effect. It wasn't anything major. That was the point: to hold on to a spell for as long as possible, keep his concentration absolutely steady, constant, unwavering. He knew (he had read about it) that members of the old Fighters' Guild had improved their stamina by running great distances at a relatively slow pace. Same principle. After a month he could keep his concentration fixed on the flame for above an hour, before he grew tired and other thoughts pushed in and the flame wavered. He had started to notice that even larger spells didn't take quite as much out of him as before.

So it went for some weeks. The last of the autumn foliage vanished away, and winter descended. The date was 26 Evening Star, and Alexien was just arriving back at Fort Dawnguard after yet another trip to Riften. He was starting to wonder when he could go back to the College.

He stepped through the main doors into the atrium, and was met by a blinding flash of sunlight. Florentius, Dagon take him, had taught Isran how to conjure artificial sunfire, which would burn undead but leave anyone else unharmed (except for being temporarily blinded and extremely annoyed), and Isran had been ordering it be cast at all new recruits and visitors. Smart, Alexien admitted, but obnoxious.

“What in Oblivion was that for?” he shouted up at Isran, who was standing on the upper balcony.

“Making sure you're not a vampire,” Isran growled at him.

“And do I pass?”

“You're not on fire. But that doesn't mean I trust you.”

 _Akatosh, Mara, Kynareth, all the gods, give me patience._ But as Alexien's eyes recovered, he looked around, and saw that Isran wasn't the only one there. Several other members of the Dawnguard were standing on the balcony looking down at him, and a few others were on the lower level, blocking off the entrances to the rest of the castle. One of them was Brynhild.

 _Oh,_ he thought. _This might be bad_. “And to what do I owe this warm reception?”

“To the vampire who arrived last night and asked for you by name.”

It took several seconds for the words to sink in. _Oh. Oh, this_ is _bad._ But then – surely he didn't mean... Alexien felt a stab of worry, of panic. If he meant _her_ – by why would she be here? And what had they done to her?

Isran was watching him, with no expression at all on his face. “Come up here. We're going to have a little chat.”

Automatically, Alexien started walking towards the stairs. He felt the eyes of all the Dawnguard on him, but he ignored them. They parted to let him pass – stepped out of his way rather quickly, actually, as if he were something contaminated, infectious.

Fantastic.

He found himself at the top of the stairs, standing face-to-face with Isran. From this close, Alexien could tell he wasn't expressionless at all: he was barely containing his rage. His jaws were clenched too tight to speak, his hands were fists (but close to his weapon, Alexien noticed). Without a word, he nodded and gestured for Alexien to follow him, back into one of the _interrogation_ rooms.

The torture rooms, rather. Alexien took a deep breath to calm himself.

And then there was Serana.

She wasn't hurt. At least physically, as far as Alexien could tell. But she stood a little hunched, head bowed, with her arms folded protectively across her stomach. Isran, no doubt, had not been kind to her. Alexien felt a surge of anger – until he remembered how easily she had manipulated his compassion before, and reminded himself not to trust her.

But then she looked up at him, and smiled through the hair that had fallen over her face, and it was all he could do not to smile back. “You probably weren't expecting to see me again,” she said.

Isran snorted, and glared at Alexien. “Sounds like a confession to me.”

“I have no wish to deny it. Yes, I know her.” He turned to Serana, and started to speak.

“Brynhild says she saw you with it,” Isran interrupted. He gave the pronoun a slight emphasis.

Serana shot Alexien a look that clearly said _I told you so_.

Alexien closed his eyes, and imagined blasting Isran to ashes. Or freezing the blood to ice in his veins; that would be satisfying. He counted to three, opened his eyes, and ignored him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked Serana. It came out a bit harsher than he had intended, but that, he reflected, was probably all to the good.

“Do I need a reason to visit an old friend?”

“No sass,” Isran growled at her. Then he turned to Alexien. “You're going to get it to say what it wants, and then I'm going to stake it. Then we'll decide what to do with _you_.”

“You know,” said Serana, “it's probably not smart to threaten both of us at once. Not when there's only one of you here.”

Isran glared at her.

“Seems amateurish,” she added.

“Serana, please,” said Alexien.

She looked at him. “Oh,” she said, deadpan, “is this one of those 'morality' things you mortals are always prating on about?”

Isran was spluttering incoherently. Serana threw him a satisfied smirk, then smiled back at Alexien. He suppressed a laugh, barely.

“Humor me,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Believe it or not, I'm not exactly thrilled to be here either. But I thought this was where I might find you. I... needed to talk to you.”

It was perfectly done, thought Alexien: the slight hesitation, the hint of flattery, the implied desperation. None of it was overplayed. She _was_ good at this. Even though he had resolved to be suspicious of her, he found himself _wanting_ to walk over and put a hand on her shoulder, assure her that whatever was wrong, they'd get through it together.

He started to say something. Isran also started to say something. Serana cut them both off: “Look, it's important, so please just listen before your friend here” – she pointed at Isran – “loses his patience. It's... well, this is awkward, but it's about me. And this thing.”

She reached back and touched the Elder Scroll strapped to her back. Alexien hadn't noticed it until then. He caught Isran staring at it open-mouthed too.

“Yeah, I brought it with me,” she said. “No, it wasn't easy. Yes, it's illusioned.”

Isran started to say something again, but this time Alexien cut him off: “You said this is about you. What's going on?”

She flashed him a grateful look. “I... well, I was kind of hoping to be able to tell you this alone –”

“Whatever you say to him, you can say to me, vampire,” spat Isran.

Alexien didn't quite agree with that. Not least of all because Serana could say a _lot_ of things that he hadn't told the Dawnguard and that, judging by Isran's mood, would probably get both of them killed if they came to light.

Serana was watching him with a quizzical expression. Then she faced Isran again. “Fine,” she said. “It's about why I was sealed away in that crypt. And why the Elder Scroll was hidden down there with me.” She smiled at Alexien. “See, I keep my promises after all.”

“Promises? What promises?” asked Isran.

“I –” started Serana.

“Nevermind,” said Alexien. “Please continue.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. So, there's a prophecy. In the Scroll. I don't know the exact phrasing, I never heard it, but... it drove my father mad. Obsessed. I mean, you met him” – Isran spluttered something, but they ignored him – “you know what he's like. As I told you, he's not exactly a good person even by our standards. But he wasn't always like that. There was a turn. He stumbled across this obscure ancient prophecy and just lost himself in it. Almost literally.”

“What kind of prophecy?”

“A pointless and vague one that could mean anything or nothing, like all prophecies,” she said bitterly. “But he takes it seriously. Again, I never heard the full thing, but the part that he latched on to said – it said that vampires would no longer need to fear the sun.”

They stared at her. For once, Isran found nothing to say.

“That's what he's after,” Serana said. “He thinks it means that vampires would rule the world. And since he's a power-obsessed Daedra-worshipper who fancies himself an invincible god-king, he thinks that means _he_ would rule the world. Forever. As in, literally forever: the eternal reign of the vampire, with all mortals in their rightful place as thralls and cattle.”

There was a horrified silence as that sank in. Then –

“Is that a _threat_?” demanded Isran.

Serana just looked at him wearily. “Really?” Then she turned back towards Alexien, doubt and hope and pleading on her face. “You... believe me, right?”

He wanted to say no. What she was saying was impossible, too terrible to accept. He looked at her face, at those bright amber eyes nervously watching his own, and wanted to tell her that he knew she was lying. But he couldn't. “I can't imagine why else you would be here,” he said honestly. “Coming here... you took a big risk.”

“I know. But... something made me think I could trust you.” She paused. “I hope I'm not wrong.”

“You're not,” he said, before he could stop himself.

“How sweet,” Isran growled. “But even if all this nonsense is true, why should we believe that _you_ want to stop it? 'The eternal reign of the vampire' – sounds great for you. Plenty of human cattle for you to get fat and lazy on. Especially if _your father_ is the one in change.”

“Because I'm evil, not stupid,” said Serana. “We're not exactly starving as it is; there are plenty of people willing to throw themselves at us with a little... persuasion. My mother and I –”

“Your _mother_?”

“Yes, we have mothers, now quiet down,” she said irritably. “My mother and I didn't want to invite a war with _all of fucking Tamriel._ Whoever wins, it would be a bloodbath. The bad kind, I mean.” She paused, and glanced back at Alexien. “And I don't really fancy a world where my father has that kind of power. Do you?”

“No,” he said, without hesitation. His mind was back in Castle Volkihar, remembering the self-obsessed cruelty on Harkon's face, that aura like chains and rust.

“Exactly. So my mother and I tried to stop him. And no, you don't have to believe we're all sad and misunderstood and really almost human at heart,” she shot at Isran. “As I explained, there are perfectly valid self-serving reasons why we'd want to avoid that particular prophecy's fulfillment.”

Isran nodded. Self-serving vampires he could understand.

“I have more questions,” said Alexien.

“Of course you do,” she said, with a mix of weariness and amusement in her voice.

“To start with, that all explains why the Elder Scroll was hidden away and magically sealed in that crypt. It doesn't explain why _you_ were down there. I mean,” he continued, when Serana gave him a blank look, “I presume he needs the Scroll in order to fulfill the prophecy it contains. Fine, that makes sense. So you and your mother steal the Scroll and hide it. But why hide you with it?”

“Well,” Serana hedged, “for starters, it was dangerous for us back home. My mother wanted to make sure nothing happened to me either. The plan was for her to wake me up when things settled down and we were safe again. Obviously something went wrong, which is why my first priority has been finding out what happened.”

“Have you?”

“Not yet. And besides,” she went on quickly, “she never said this, but I think she wanted me to be with the Scroll so I could guard it, in case anyone tried to take it by force.”

Alexien had the distinct impression she wasn't telling him all she knew, and this time he didn't think it was just his paranoia. But he couldn't force the information out of her, and didn't want to do so in the middle of the Dawnguard's headquarters in any case.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay?” She was watching him carefully.

He took a deep breath. “Okay, I'm in: I'll help. So, how do we do this?”

“Easy,” said Isran, and pointed at Serana. “We kill _it_ , hide the scroll, and then kill its father.”

“You can't kill him,” said Serana, as if that were her only objection to this plan. “He's... protected, somehow.”

“What do you mean?” asked Alexien.

“People have tried. People a lot more talented than this ogre.” She gestured at Isran. “They couldn't touch him. Even with magic. You can vouch for me,” she said to Alexien; “I'm strong. My mother is stronger. And she chose to run and hide instead of trying to fight him.”

“Everything can be killed,” said Isran, as if trying to reassure himself.

“Not him,” she said simply.

“All right,” said Alexien, raising a hand. “Let's assume that's true, or that even if he _can_ be killed, we're not strong enough to make it happen. What do you suggest, then?”

“Well,” she said, “I think you were right about the Scroll: he can't fulfill the prophecy without it. At least that's what my mother always told me: I never heard the full prophecy, but she did. It was her idea to steal the Scroll and hide it.”

“So we hide it again. Drop it in the middle of the ocean. Send it to Akavir.”

She shook her head. “This time, he knows I have it. He may even have been expecting me to take it, and could be having me followed for all we know. We'll have to keep it with us so we can protect it. And besides, the Elder Scrolls – they're not bound by the same physical laws as the rest of this reality. You can't leave them buried or sunk somewhere and expect them to stay there, like a well-behaved bag of rocks.”

“What bullshit,” Isran said. They ignored him.

“So,” Serana continued, “what I was thinking... if my mother were here, she would know what to do. But she's not, and none of us knows the full prophecy, so none of us knows how to stop it. We're walking blind. But” – and now she was looking directly at Alexien, somehow excluding Isran from the conversation – “if _we_ read the Scroll and found out exactly what the prophecy says, we might also learn how to prevent it from coming true.”

“So read it,” said Isran.

“You can't just read an Elder Scroll,” said Alexien. “Or at least, none of us can. Not without going blind and insane.”

“Exactly,” said Serana. “Otherwise I would have already done so and might not even be here. But... I have some ideas on that front. If you'll help me.”

“I'll certainly try. We just... have to convince the others you're on our side.”

Serana snorted. “Not likely. Besides, on _your_ side? I think you're on _my_ side.”

Alexien didn't want to think too much about what she meant by that. Thankfully, his introspection was interrupted by Isran.

“No,” he said. “Pursue this nonsense if you want, but I'm not sending any of my people to help. We're fighting a war, and I intend to win it.”

“I don't want any of _your people_ ,” Serana sneered. “Just the wizard here.”

“Um –”

“Shush,” she said.

“I still don't know why I didn't just put an end to you when you came here,” said Isran. “Or why I don't do that now.” His hand inched towards the warhammer on his back.

“Because you can't,” Serana said simply. She let that sink in for a heartbeat, before continuing: “I'm not saying we're going to join the best-friends club. But if I weren't telling the truth, why would I be here? It's not because I've heard so much about your hospitality that I just had to experience it for myself.”

“How should I know how a vampire's mind works? Maybe you're both spies. Maybe you have a death wish. Maybe you're just insane.”

“If we were spies, I wouldn't have shown myself to you,” Serana said, ticking off fingers. “If I had a death wish, I would have already started attacking your people. If I were insane – well, you've got me there, this is pretty insane. And getting less sane by the minute. Believe me, if I had any choice at all, if there were anywhere else I could go, I wouldn't be here.” She glanced at Alexien. “But I can't do this alone; I need someone I can trust to watch my back. If it makes you feel any better, forget the damn prophecy, and just imagine I'm asking him to go kill some vampires with me. If we succeed, great; if we fail, great; either way there are fewer vampires in the world. What do you care?”

Isran glared at her. But her last point clearly resonated, and he relented. “Fine. Fine! On his head be it. You hear me? You're not a guest, and you're not an ally. You're an asset. You can stay in the castle for one night, but he's responsible for you. Don't make me regret my sudden outburst of tolerance or generosity, because if you do, if you lay a finger on anyone, if you so much as _look_ at anyone wrong, your friend's going to be the one who pays for it. If that's even something your kind cares about.”

“You'll never find out,” Serana glared back at him. “But thank you for your kindness. I'll remember it next time I'm feeling hungry.”

They stared at one another. Isran looked away first, and turned to Alexien. “I'm going to want a full report on all this, and if you leave out the smallest detail, or if I find out you've been working with _it_ all along, Stendarr help me if I don't kill you on the spot. And don't come crying to me when it tries to infect you.”

“I'm not –” Alexien started.

Isran stormed off.

“– under your command,” he finished. “Damn it.”

“Nice guy,” said Serana. “I see what you meant about him.”

“And now you know why I came back. I just couldn't stay away from all this courtliness and _joie de vivre_.”

Suddenly Alexien realized that he was alone with Serana, for the first time since they had approached the castle two months ago. She was watching him curiously.

“I hoped I'd find you here,” she said. “This is the first place I looked.”

“Why here?”

“It was either here or Winterhold. And I thought, washing your hands of all this and just going home didn't seem like you. You'd want to help, to be involved, to do something.”

“You seem to know me well.”

“Maybe you're a lot more obvious than you think.” She took a step closer to him, and looked directly into his face. Her gaze was... intense. “Good work, by the way, pretending not to trust me. If Isran weren't a complete idiot he would have bought it.”

Alexien's face burned, and he looked away. “Right,” he mumbled.

She did not look away. “I know things at the castle didn't go down quite as I had led you to expect,” she said. “But –”

“I'm fine,” he said, too quickly.

“Right,” she said. She stepped back. “Just... trust me long enough to get this done, okay?” She bit her lip, and looked like she wanted to say something else. Instead she turned and walked towards the door. “Come on, if we leave now we can be in Riften early enough to spend the night there.”

“What,” he said, taking refuge in sarcasm, “you don't want to enjoy the Dawnguard's world-famous hospitality tonight?”

She snorted. “Please. I have standards. No one I've seen here looks particularly... appetizing. Well, almost no one.” She flashed him that familiar innocent smile.

Alexien laughed. It was like old times. Almost. “And once we find a proper inn, we can talk more freely about the rest of our itinerary.”

“Exactly,” said Serana. She gave him another curious look. “I see you've already _not_ been talking freely here. How much didn't you tell them?”

The answer was _Quite a lot_ – but he wasn't sure she needed to know that, and fell silent.

As they left the castle, the Dawnguard lined the hallways, whispering as they went by. Someone grabbed Alexien's sleeve. It was Brynhild. He raised an eyebrow at her; Serana looked annoyed, but nodded and moved some distance away.

“You're leaving?” Brynhild asked.

He nodded.

“With her?” she asked again.

For some reason, he was glad she hadn't said _with_ _it_. “Yes.” Then, feeling he had to say something more, “There's something we have to do. Isran knows about it.”

She nodded. “Just... I just have to ask you... you didn't have anything to do with what happened at the Hall... right?”

He stared at her. “If I did,” he said, annoyed, “do you think I would answer honestly?”

She flinched, and let go of his sleeve. “No,” she said, a little sadly. Then: “You already lied once.”

“I didn't have a choice.” _You'd be dead if I hadn't_.

“Right.” She hesitated a moment. “Listen, in case you are what you appear to be... stay safe, okay? Stay yourself.”

What in the world was that supposed to mean? He only nodded, turned, and followed Serana outside. The whispering resumed and chased them out the door.

Fantastic.


	6. Skyrim Belongs to the Nords

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential trigger warning: implied references to past rape and PTSD. Nothing explicit, but still implied.

It was good not to be alone again. Exploring on your own gets boring.

Okay, maybe walking the short distance from Fort Dawnguard to Riften didn't count as “exploring,” but it was the next best thing, and Serana was still glad to have someone else to chat with on the way.

Even if that someone else was being a bit moody and not particularly talkative.

Not that she could blame him for it. Getting Alexien to relax around her had been slow last time, and they had at least had the advantage of sharing a few desperate fights to the death to build camaraderie. She thought he had almost trusted her by the end. Then something had possessed her to drag him into that damned castle, where her delightful and not at all evilly insane father must have confirmed as horribly true all his worst ideas about vampires.

No surprise he'd gone back to the Dawnguard after that.

Well, so it goes. It wouldn't be the first time “playing with her food” (as her father had put it) had ended ill. And anyway, they had much bigger things to worry about at the moment. Like preventing the literal end of humanity and avoiding a genocidal war of extermination against her kind.

But all the same, it would have been nice to be able to tell someone how beautifully the fading light of evening colored the snow-strewn landscape. Instead, she just stopped and waved an arm vaguely at the sunset, and he nodded, and they continued on.

* * *

Riften wasn't as bad as its reputation. Sure, the guards had tried to extort a bribe before letting them inside (“You can always sleep outside the protection of the walls, if you don't mind being woken by bandits”), but Serana had smiled at them and they faltered and waved them through the gate. Alexien had no trouble leading them to the inn he had stayed at before, and the urchins only tried to pick his pockets twice on the way (no one tried to pickpocket Serana). And after the innkeeper had sized them up, he only tried to charge them three times what the cramped room was actually worth. And no one had tried to stick a knife in their backs. Yet.

Really, it was almost disappointing, Serana thought. She had hoped for a wretched hive of villainy, whose dashing rogues could charm you out of your pants before they stole the shirt off your back, and instead the city was just a cheap den of grubby little larcenists.

They at least had a private room. She watched Alexien cast a few wards and a soundproofing spell. As good a time as any to try for banter again.

“Planning to do something loud with me tonight?” she asked.

She would swear he flushed slightly, but his voice came out level. “I thought you might want to talk unoverheard.”

“That's not a real word.”

“As of right now, yes, it is. I'm a mage.” He waved a hand in a mystical-looking gesture and made the air shimmer slightly. “I conjured it, it's real now.”

She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, and he laughed.

“Actually,” she said, “I thought _you_ might want to talk.”

“About what?”

 _About me almost getting you killed?_ “About... what happened at the castle.”

“Ah,” he said awkwardly. “Are you – I hope I didn't offend you?” She looked at him blankly, so he want on: “When I declined your father's offer. It occurred to me that it may have been what you intended all along, and I had been too dense to realize what I was agreeing to.”

Her throat felt tight. “Do you really think that?”

“Well – how else would I have been welcome among vampires?”

“No,” she said forcefully. “Just... no.”

Alexien nodded, and let out a breath of relief. For some reason that annoyed Serana. “As I told you before,” she said, “the castle is no place for you. It can't have been pleasant.”

“It... was not, no.”

“Is that why you went back to the Dawnguard?” she asked, more pointedly than she had intended.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It was the first place I thought to look for you, but still, I was” – disappointed? hurt? – “surprised to find you there. How many of us have you killed since the last time I talked to you?”

He looked at her quietly for several seconds before answering. “None, actually.”

“You spent two months with a group of fanatical – your word – vampire-hunters, and you didn't manage to kill any in that period?”

“I just cast protective enchantments. I never went out to fight.”

“Why not?”

“I don't think Isran trusted me,” he said. But that wasn't the reason.

Serana closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out a moment later. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “I think we're getting off on the wrong foot tonight.”

“Sorry about that,” Alexien said awkwardly. “I just... anyway. You're right. Let me try again.” He shook his head and rolled his shoulders, then put on a friendlier expression. “It _is_ nice to see you again.”

“Is it?”

“It is. I was worried.” When she didn't say anything, he went on: “How have you been?”

 _Oh, you know, kept prisoner in an ancient fortress as my father made vague threats at me and I had to flatter a bunch of the most stereotypically evil vampires in the world to see if any of them knew whether my mother is still alive or not. The usual._ “I finished reading the books we picked up at Solitude.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

“Hm. I'm impressed. We'll have to stop by those bookshops again if we're in the area.”

“Actually,” said Serana, seeing an opening to redirect the conversation, “you _did_ give me a standing invitation to visit the College library.”

He raised an eyebrow, but replied without hesitation, “The standing invitation still stands. What... ah. Information about the Elder Scroll?”

She nodded. It was nice talking to someone who could keep up, for once. “I thought, if there's one place in all Skyrim that might know something about reading one...”

“It's possible,” Alexien said thoughtfully, “but a longshot. The College has never had an Elder Scroll that I know of. And they aren't exactly magical anyway, properly speaking; they're outside our demesne.”

“History and herbology are perfectly mundane, but you still know a lot about those subjects,” she pointed out.

“That's true,” he admitted.

“So you might have some information.”

“I'm sure we have _something_ , and it's worth a shot,” said Alexien. “But we won't find _How to Read Elder Scrolls in Three Easy Steps_. The only people I've heard of who can extract information from the Scrolls without permanent psychological damage are the Moth Priests.”

“I think I've heard of them,” said Serana. “They're some kind of special order of wizards, right?”

“Not exactly. I don't really understand them, and I _met_ one in Cyrodiil. But they're not mages, because the Scrolls aren't magic – at least not in the way you and I understand it.”

“I don't suppose the College keeps a cohort of Moth Priests on retainer, then?”

Alexien snorted. “That would make this easy, and the gods would never let _that_ happen. No, they don't really leave the White-Gold Tower.” He looked thoughtful a moment. “Still, it's a good idea and as good a lead as we have. If a Moth Priest _were_ to come to Skyrim, they might well make the same assumption as you, and try visiting the College first.”

“So it's agreed,” said Serana. “Our first step is to try the College. And you can't weasel out of showing me the library after all. And besides,” she said a moment later, as if casually, “I'd like to try to find out _when_ it is.”

Meaning, how long she had been in the crypt. They had discussed it previously but hadn't been able to arrive at any conclusions about when she had been locked away: she didn't understand the Imperial chronological system at all, and he didn't recognize the names of any of the “High Kings of Skyrim” (he suspected they were just upstart lords of an independent Solitude) she remembered. That meant she was either _unimaginably_ ancient, or perhaps from the long Interregnum of the Second Era. Which was only a comparatively brief millennium ago.

“If there's anywhere in Skyrim you can find that out, it's Winterhold,” said Alexien. Then he frowned. “Actually, no, I suppose there's an even better source.”

“Oh?”

“Well,” he said awkwardly, “your father has been awake the whole time, hasn't he?”

And they were talking about her father again. “No,” she said firmly. “He wouldn't tell me even if I asked. Which I didn't. And he probably considers mundane matters like keeping track of what century it is beneath him anyway. Can we stop talking about him?”

“I'm... sorry to have mentioned it,” he said, and looked it. “But we're going to _have_ to talk about him, with what we're trying to do.”

She glared at him, but bit back a sharp retort and shook her head. “You're right. But I'd like to pretend he doesn't exist whenever possible. And tonight it's possible.” She waved her hand through the air, mimicking Alexien from earlier, and the air shimmered in front of her. “Because I say so, and I'm a mage too.”

Alexien laughed, and she smiled, and then they fell silent a while. “You should go to bed,” Serana said suddenly. “We have a lot of distance to cover tomorrow.”

He nodded. “So should you. But I need to do something first. It'll just take me a bit.” She raised an eyebrow, but didn't move or respond otherwise, and after a moment he shrugged and turned away and sat on the floor. He glanced once at her, shook his head, and raised a hand in front of him; then he conjured a small flame in his palm and started to stare at it unblinking. It lit up his face and cast a faint orange light on the walls.

“Oh, are we burning down the inn?” Serana asked cheerfully.

“I'm practicing,” Alexien responded flatly, without removing his gaze from the fire.

“Practicing what, lighting candles? Murdering ants? It's barely burning at all.”

“That's the idea,” he said, flatly again. “A small spell. Concentrate. See how long.”

Serana felt a grin spread over her face. It actually wasn't a bad idea – but that wouldn't stop her from messing with him. After all, if she tried to distract him and break his concentration, that was just her way of helping him practice, right? The fact that it would be fun was beside the point. She just had to think of something to shock him, and how hard could that be?

“Clever,” she said. She moved over to where she would be standing just inside his peripheral vision, and stretched. “I have some things to take care of as well, so you just sit here and play with fire, and I'll be back later.”

He only nodded slightly.

Serana folded her arms and tapped her mouth thoughtfully with a finger. “I _am_ rather hungry, now that I mention it. I should probably go find something – that is, someone to eat.” They'd have to discuss that again at some point anyway; might as well bring it up as part of a joke.

No response. She continued to look thoughtful. “Let's see. Lots of houses, and most people are probably asleep. That's always an easy meal. It can get boring, though. Sometimes it's a lot more fun if they're awake.”

Somehow Alexien's stare grew more pointed, but he didn't look away from the flame.

“Let's see,” she said again, smiling. “The innkeeper is probably still awake. Rather plain though. I suppose I could try to find that rather burly blacksmith. No no, I've got it. There was that rather rude woman in the market earlier, the one all in tight leather armor that you kept staring at. The brunette. She might do nicely.”

The flame flickered slightly. Serana's grin widened. No doubt he was getting _very_ annoyed indeed, but he couldn't say anything about it at the moment without losing (for she had decided to consider this a game, and was determined to win, whatever that meant).

“Hm,” she hummed thoughtfully. “Where, though? I suppose I could always convince her to follow me back here.”

No response. But his heart sped up slightly.

“I might even let you watch, if you're nice. As long as she's awake, it'll be much easier if she's also _willing_. Not to mention more fun. If you do it right there can be an element of... seduction, to it.”

One of Alexien's eyebrows went up, and the flame wavered and almost went out, and Serana grinned. But after a moment his gaze was steady again, and the flame burned evenly.

That was frustrating. What would it take to break his concentration? She stared at him a moment. He kept watching the flame. And she made what she knew was a very bad decision even as she said it:

“Have I told you about the time I met Molag Bal?”

Suddenly the flame died entirely, and Alexien's eyes widened, and his heart was beating wildly. But now she didn't care. Her own eyes were wide, wide and horrified at herself. Why – why the _fuck_ had she brought up – there was no way she wanted to talk about _that_. Not like this. Not with him.

“You...” he was saying, staring at her; “You actually met the Lord of Lies, the King of –” then he suddenly cut himself off and fell silent. There was a look of mingled curiosity and revulsion on his face, a look that Serana found far too intelligent, too guessing, for her taste.

She shrank into herself, and folded her arms over her stomach. “I'd rather... I don't want to...”

For several breaths, that searching look stayed on his face, trained on her. He opened his mouth several times to say something, and several times he closed it again. Then he shook his head, and his gaze softened. “Of course,” he said.

Serana looked up at him.

“You don't have to explain anything,” he went on. “It is forgotten.”

She shook her head.

“It is forgotten,” he said again, more firmly. “If you ever want to talk about – but you will never hear me bring it up. Never from this moment on.”

She stared at him, arms still wrapped around herself. Neither moved: Alexien still sat on the floor, Serana still stood huddled with her back to the wall. Finally she relaxed ever so slightly, and loosened her arms. She tried to give him a weak smile, and didn't quite manage it.

“Thank you,” she said. “I'm...” she shook her head, and forced her body to relax, and after a moment she looked herself again. Except her eyes. “I'm going to go out a while,” she started again. “I still need to eat. Don't wait up for me.”

Alexien nodded, and watched as she walked out through the door. She did not return that night.

* * *

Someone shook Alexien awake. It was just before dawn, and the room was still in darkness. All he could see was a silhouette with burning eyes leaning over him, which he desperately hoped was Serana and not a different vampire here to tear his throat out. But no, he was awake, not dead. He took a deep breath and resisted the urge to fill the room with sunfire.

A hand withdrew from his shoulder. “Sorry about that,” came Serana's voice. A second later there was a bright flash, and he saw her standing over him, hand raised, with an orb of light hovering over her shoulder.

“Yech,” he complained, turning his face away from the light. “I preferred thinking you were here to kill me in the dark.”

“Baby,” she said. “Come on. I've been looking at maps and talking to travelers. Windhelm is the next city on the way north, and we can make it there in two days, provided we leave early and stay on the road late. One rather helpful and moderately edible merchant strongly advised me not to camp out more than one night in Eastmarch.” She rolled her eyes. “Apparently the roads aren't safe. Did you know there might be _vampires_ around?”

“I may have heard some wild rumor about that, but you can't believe travellers' tales.” He yawned and sat up. “All right, let me get dressed and buy some bread and ale for the road, and we'll go.”

Alexien got up and threw on his robe and traveling boots, and buckled on his sword. Serana watched him quietly the whole time.

“Something on your mind?” he asked her, hoisting his pack over his shoulder.

“I'm sorry about last night.”

He glanced at her face. “Me too.”

She nodded; and when he looked like he was about to say more, she interrupted: “That's that, then. Come on. I want to hurry so we minimize our odds of running into _scary vampires_ tonight.”

Serana paid up with the innkeeper as they left – Alexien eyed her suspiciously full bag of gold but didn't say anything. They only tried to charge her half again what had been agreed on, but she smiled at them and spoke in her sweetest voice and somehow ended up getting a discount. Alexien decided he should travel with vampires more often.

As they left the city through the north gate, Alexien looked around a few times. When he caught Serana watching him curiously, he said: “You said your father might be having you followed?”

“It's possible. But if they're there, you won't see them.”

“I also won't see them if they're not there.”

“Exactly. It's a cruel predicament. Better not to think about it and just wait for the inevitable ambush.”

“And when this inevitable ambush occurs, what should we expect?”

“The usual: a few vampires, a thrall or ten, maybe a gargoyle if we're unlucky. Don't worry though, they'll probably be under orders to kill you but take me prisoner.”

“And I shouldn't worry about that because...?”

“Because, while they're busy killing you, it gives me time to escape with the Scroll.” She smiled at him. “Really, don't worry, you're much cleverer than my father's minions. I have full confidence in your ability to delay them for whole _minutes_ while I get away.”

“You're too kind. Really. Stop being so kind.”

They walked on a while. Suddenly Serana spoke: “I was meaning to ask you: Did you ever find out anything about those creepy voices you heard when we first met? With the writing on the wall?”

“Er... To tell the truth, I had forgotten about that until this very moment. I'd been planning to go back to the College and look into it, but I got... distracted.”

“You're okay, though? Not blacking out or hallucinating, no sudden murderous impulses?”

“A few murderous impulses, but I was usually around Isran at the time, so the evidence is inconclusive.”

“Sounds normal to me. But have no fear, I'm here now, and I'll be sure to kill you at the very first symptoms of anything weird.”

“You know what I like about traveling with you? The relentless optimism.”

“And do you know what I like about traveling with you?” She smiled innocently and leaned close. “Having a self-propelled snack for the road. And it can even set my enemies on fire for me, not to mention leading me to all the good libraries. I should have been enthralling mages centuries ago.”

Alexien snickered, and Serana tried to keep a straight face but laughed anyway, and they walked on.

The Rift was best seen in autumn, not the dead of winter; its trees were all bare and colorless, and its rolling hills lacked the stark beauty of the mountains of the Reach. And yet Serana didn't seem to care. She was, as always, delighted with everything they saw. Once they passed Dwemer ruins, and even trying to hurry, she stopped for a few minutes to look, running her hands over the strange designs in an unknown metal on the doors. She knew nothing more about their disappearance than Alexien. Neither had ever been inside dwarven ruins, but both had heard warnings, and after sharing stories of invisible traps and insectoid monsters and metal abominations they were glad enough to move away from the doors and get back to the road.

Some time in the afternoon they arrived at a small mining town, in the midst of some commotion. The guards were trying and failing to keep order, facing down an angry crowd. One of them recognized Alexien – he had passed through some time ago and healed a few broken bones – and eagerly pulled him aside, telling him workers in the mine had been killed by frostbite spiders, and they were desperate for work but scared to reopen until the jarl could send a military detachment. So far it had been a week. Alexien just nodded and went into the mine, Serana following quite cheerfully. While he shot lightning at the spiders, she just reanimated the bodies of the fallen miners – humming a song from the Riften tavern the whole time, Stendarr preserve – and they charged with their pickaxes. It was over in seconds. The townspeople were suitable gracious and pressed food on them, and Alexien just hoped they didn't notice that the bodies had not stayed where they originally fell.

That night they camped out beside a hotspring. The hills of the Rift fell away, and the road led down to a blasted, sulfurous landscape, but at least it was warm. Alexien proclaimed they were now in Eastmarch. Both of them cast a number of alarm spells and wards, so they decided there was no need to keep watch and both went to sleep exhausted.

The next day they followed the winding path through the hotsprings. In the daylight they had an unusual beauty, the waters almost shining in bright metallic colors, but Serana shrank from the smell. Occasionally Alexien bent down and cut pieces of an ugly red vine, and sometimes plucked what looked like small wild grapes; most of these he put in a pocket, but sometimes he popped the grapes into his mouth and chewed contentedly. “Jazbay,” he said simply, and offered a few to Serana, who declined.

As they got nearer Windhelm, they were no longer the only travelers on the road. Sometimes they passed farmers taking their goods to and from the city, or pilgrims leaving Kynesgrove, or soldiers clad in the Jarl's distinctive sky-blue livery. Most of these they passed silently, but some shot quick glances at them and muttered under their breath as they went by.

“I hate Eastmarch,” said Alexien, after this had happened a few times. One of the guards looked back at them, but shrugged and moved on.

“You hate most of Skyrim.”

“True. But the Nords here are particularly virulent against outsiders.”

“Once again,” said Serana, “you say that about most Nords.”

“And true again. But this time I'm not exaggerating. Eastmarch, and Windhelm in particular, have been the scene of some rather brutal anti-Dunmer violence in recent years. There's supposed to be widespread harassment, and the city guard will allegedly look the other way as long as the victim is foreign.”

“What did the Dunmer ever to do Windhelm?”

“Moved there, apparently. When the Red Mountain erupted again in 4E 5, I think it was, it destroyed most of Vvardenfell, and thousands and thousands of elves – the lucky ones – were suddenly homeless. The Jarls of Skyrim rather magnanimously welcomed the refugees and offered them full legal rights, and quite a lot took them up on it. Most settled in Windhelm. The Nords were hospitable enough as long they didn't actually have dark elves for their neighbors, but as soon as the Dunmer were living in their city and working side by side with them, it was, oh no, the great Ysgramor drove all the filthy elves out of Windhelm, and here we are letting them take over again. That's when the beatings started, and then the 'disappearances' shortly thereafter.”

“That started in 4E 5, you said. But this 4E 200, almost 201, right? So you're saying it's been like that here for almost two hundred years?”

“More or less. Hence hating Eastmarch. But it's been worse lately. As long as the Empire was strong, there was still a sense that all of us, Nords and Bretons and Dunmer and even Argonians, were fellow citizens. All right, yes, I'm romanticizing it a bit, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. But since the Great War ended and the Empire started falling apart, and some Nords started asking themselves what the Empire ever did for Skyrim, all of a sudden the Dunmer – and people from other provinces generally, but especially elves – aren't just unwelcome guests; they're foreign agents, invaders.”

“You seem...” Serana hesitated. “You seem to take it personally.”

“I'm...” Alexien took a deep breath. “A little, yeah,” he admitted. “I'm biased. Honestly, don't tell anyone, but I like it in Skyrim. But I came here when I was nineteen, thirteen – no, fourteen years ago, now. I've lived almost half my life here. And except when I'm at the College, there hasn't been a single day when someone or something didn't remind me that it's not my home.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Serana muttered.

Alexien stopped, and looked at Serana for a moment, and gave her a sad smile. “I suppose you would. It's... not easy, is it?”

“I wouldn't change anything. But... no,” she said, “it's not.” She looked awkward for a moment, then continued: “So, why doesn't the jarl do anything about all this?”

Alexien started walking again, but looked around before answering. “Jarl Ulfric? Not bloody likely. He's a 'Skyrim for the Nords' type, and when he came to the throne it became _understood_ that violence against the dark elves would not be investigated.”

“Ulfric,” said Serana, thoughtfully. “Didn't you mention his name before? He's the one you said some of the Nords thought should be king instead of what's-his-name.”

“That's the one. Torygg, by the way.”

“Hm. At least, all this is what you foreign College types will tell me. What will I hear in Windhelm?”

“That the Dunmer are abusing the jarl's hospitality and turning to every sort of crime, and the Empire is tacitly encouraging them because they're afraid of a strong and united Skyrim, but finally Jarl Ulfric has the courage to stand up for the rights of the long-suffering _real_ citizens of Windhelm and put the foreigners in their place. And the rumors of anti-Dunmer violence are nothing more than slanderous imperial propaganda, and also they had it coming.”

Serana shook her head. “What a lovely place you're bringing me to.”

“But won't it be worth it,” Alexien asked, “to see the fabled city of Ysgramor?”

“Not if someone tries to 'disappear' me while I'm touristing around.”

He waved an arm dismissively. “Don't worry, you'll be okay. You're a Nord, after all.”

“ _Was_ a Nord,” Serana pointed out. “I got kind of dead, remember?”

“Dead Nords are still better than live Bretons, in Windhelm.”

“I'm better than you everywhere,” she said with a sudden grin.

Alexien rolled his eyes. “How is it you're single?”

“I haven't found anyone who can keep up with me.”

“In terms of wit, you mean?”

“Sure.”

He rolled his eyes again, but Serana caught him smiling.

* * *

Windhelm was, in fact, worth it. The city was, Serana admitted to herself, rather smaller than she had expected; but it still had an age and a stolid grandeur that shamed even Solitude. What in Solitude had been wood, was here ancient stone, ancient even to Serana. For this was where human history began on Tamriel. Alexien pointed out that that wasn't strictly true, technically; but it was still the oldest city of Skyrim, and the oldest continually inhabited human settlement in Tamriel, founded by Ysgramor in the Merethic Era, when he and his legendary companions first left Atmora.

Sure, most of these buildings were not _that_ old. Probably very little of the stonework still visible predated the Second Era. The city had been rebuilt and restored and burned and rebuilt again many times over. But that did not diminish its wonder.

It was worth it, to see all this, even when they had to suffer suspicious stares and whispers whenever they pressed through the crowds. A few times they walked by small groups of Nords that had cornered a passing Dunmer, and they glared at Alexien and Serana as though daring them to intervene. Alexien walked on and did not even look at them, but Serana noticed his right hand unconsciously locked in the gesture for fire.

One building on the main square was particularly grand, taller than anything else around it, with a wide facade and high spires. But the entrance was boarded over. It was... sad, forlorn, Serana thought; the building deserved to be admired, not ignored like this. She walked over and considered sneaking in if she could find another entrance.

Alexien shook his head. “Temple of Talos,” he said. “Worship is banned. Even here in Windhelm, for now.”

The sun was setting behind the temple spires. They left to find an inn.

The Candlehearth Hall had probably originally been a temple of some kind, but had been so completely remodeled that Serana and Alexien could not guess the details. Not that that stopped them from trying, or from arguing about it as they went inside. But the rooms were reasonably priced and comfortable, and the common area upstairs was bright and cheerful, and after dropping their gear (and placing a few discreet wards) they decided to go upstairs and enjoy the vivacity. It had been fun at Dragon Bridge, after all.

They had a table to themselves, and Alexien ordered food for himself and wine for them both. There were a few other travelers, Imperial by their looks, but most of the clientele seemed to be local, and they were talking and laughing with typically Nordic cheer. There was even a bard, a Dunmeri woman (though she sang with an Eastmarch accent and so had probably been born in Windhelm, Alexien pointed out), who seemed quite popular. Serana wondered whether Alexien had been exaggerating how bad it was here.

But she did notice that no one else offered to join them or invited them over.

Still, that didn't bother her much. Alexien was pleasant enough company, especially once they finished the first bottle and he ordered another. And the bard was really quite talented. Most of the other patrons sang along with her, loud and lusty and rather off-key, but not unwelcome.

And yet. At some point – she couldn't tell when, probably because Alexien had kept refilling her cup – at some point Alexien grew tense. And the atmosphere in the room changed somehow. She tried to pay attention to what had just been happening. The table nearest the bard, one of the loudest and most uproarious, had requested a particular song. And the room had gone silent at that. The Dunmeri woman looked... uncomfortable, but they pressed her, and she had started to sing.

Serana glanced at Alexien, who shook his head. Whatever that meant. She listened to the song, tried to focus on the words.

Oh.

It was... violently political. It was all about blood and steel, about the true children of Skyrim rising up and throwing off their oppressors, driving out the Empire, taking back their city, their land, their home. Wiping it clean of the foreign scourge.

And they were forcing the Dunmer to sing it.

A few of the other patrons started slipping away. The song ended, but the men at the same table as last time demanded she sing it again. She went pale but refused. They acted like they'd been waiting for that; they got up, angrily, and stood around her, cursing, calling her traitor, demanding why Windhelm wasn't good enough for her. One not so subtly put his hand on an axe haft.

“Let's go,” Serana muttered to Alexien, who nodded. They rose.

“And where are you going, Breton?” came a harsh voice. Apparently they were too close to slip away unnoticed.

“To bed,” said Alexien calmly. But Serana heard his heart. “I'm tired, and drunk on all this Nordic hospitality.”

A few of them broke off from the bard and stalked over to them, in what they evidently intended to be a menacing fashion. Wonderful.

“You don't like our song, Breton?” said one.

“I enjoyed it more than enough the first time.”

“You don't like our song,” he repeated. “Can't just stay in High Rock and leave us alone, no, you've got to come here and try to tell us what to do in our own city. Can't even speak the language right, just fucking listen to you. Sound like the gods-damned prince of Daggerfall.”

“For Magnus' sake,” said Alexien, visibly annoyed, “we're not all from –”

“Mage, too, by the look,” another spat, as if the word tasted foul. “Was your kind killed all them people up in Winterhold.”

Another man grabbed the half-empty bottle of wine from in front of Serana and smashed it on the edge of the table, and was holding a sharp-looking piece like a knife. “Wine from _Cyrodiil_ too, good Nord drink not good enough for you?”

“Wine is calming. I find mead makes me restive and stupid. Case in point, you fine gentlemen.”

“Is this really the time?” Serana muttered to him. He shrugged, and she grabbed his shoulder to pull him away.

“Oy, where are you going?”

A few more men had walked over to surround them. Five, now. Apparently intimidating mouthy Bretons was more fun than browbeating terrified Dunmer.

“I'm taking him to bed,” said Serana. “He gets like this when he's drunk.”

One of the men laid his hand on a sword. “Good Nord woman like you's too good for his like. For fuck's sake he's wearing a dress. Leave off the milk-drinker, take one of us to bed instead.”

“Or all of us,” added another. They laughed.

Alexien stiffened. Serana could feel him gathering magic of some kind. Fire, maybe? Dagon take them all, he was still drunk and he was going to burn the whole room down if she didn't do something.

She turned to the biggest and ugliest of the men, and put on her most charming smile, and willed power into her voice. “You don't want to do this. You know this is a bad idea. What you want to do is sit down, finish your drink, and go home and sleep.”

The man wavered slightly, and looked confused. “I... what?”

“You want to home home and sleep,” said Serana, still smiling. “Tomorrow's going to be a long, busy day, right? You work hard. Finish your drink, you deserve it. Then you need to go rest. You should go.”

“I... should go,” he repeated blankly.

“Hey!” one yelled, “she's using _magic_!”

Well there went that plan. So much for subtle.

Serana planted her feet on the ground, and waved a hand through the air. Alexien felt a surge of nauseatingly cold energy, saw a flash of crimson – or maybe he imagined that, and it was just her aura blazing forth – and everyone surrounding them and everyone still harassing the Dunmeri woman relaxed all at once, their shoulders slumping, a blank look covering their faces. As one, at exactly the same moment, they turned and started walking away. Serana grabbed Alexien by the shoulder again and pulled him down the stairs.

“What –”

“I hate doing that,” she mumbled.

“Did you just _enthrall_ them?”

“Not technically, no,” she said. “Just a rather... forceful application of Illusion magic. They'll recover. Probably. I think. Maybe there will be some long-term effects.”

Alexien said nothing. They arrived back at their room; Serana pushed him inside, and closed the door behind them.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Sober enough now,” he said. “You?”

“Will be. Casting that spell feels... slimy.” She wiped her hands on her pants.

“It's better than me burning them all to death.”

“Yeah, overreact much?”

“I... wasn't thinking clearly.” He watched her, thoughtful for a moment. “And anyway, I'm not bad at Illusion, but I don't think I could turn a whole room of people at once like that.”

“It's a vampire thing. Well, a vampire mage thing. We're quite good at Illusion.”

Alexien nodded. A thought crept in – that she had been doing the same sort of thing when she smiled at them, and maybe whenever she smiled at _him_ too – and he studiously ignored it.

Serana waved a hand in front of his eyes. “Hey, anyone there?”

“I'm fine. Just thinking.”

“Right,” Serana said, looking at him skeptically. “Well, I still need to go... out, but if you're not –”

“I'm fine,” Alexien said again. “Go enjoy your meal. I promise I won't set anything on fire until you get back.”

Serana kept watching for a moment – she could have won an award for creepy silent staring – then nodded, and left the room.

So Alexien was alone. And, if he was honest with himself, not fine after all. He _had_ been dangerously close to just cutting loose and blasting everyone in the room to Oblivion. That wasn't like him. Not since he'd been a teenager. One of the first temptations mages, all mages, had to overcome was the temptation to give in to their emotions, to let fly and channel the literal power of creation whenever and at whatever the mood struck them. Those who couldn't control themselves either died young, or else went insane and then still died young. He'd been drinking a lot of wine, true, but didn't think that alone could explain it. Why had he been so angry? Doubtless he was angry at himself: he knew better than to go somewhere like Windhelm, should have known better than to bring Serana there. That was a nice, comforting answer that he didn't have to think any more about.

He should sleep; he knew that the next morning would be miserable. But he also knew he couldn't sleep yet. Reading it was, then. With a sigh he grabbed his pack and rummaged around for a book. He pulled one out that he hadn't read before – and realized suddenly that it was the book Serana had bought for him at Solitude months ago. He had since put it aside, avoided reading it; but still he had kept it nearby. But there's nothing quite as needling as an unread book kept nearby. He opened it to the first page and sat down to read until Serana came back.

He had barely got a few chapters in when there was a loud knock at the door. “ _Open in the name of the Jarl!_ ” came a harsh voice.

Well, that probably wasn't good.

The knock repeated, more forcibly. Alexien went over to the door and opened it. At once two soldiers in the sky-blue livery of Jarl Ulfric pressed inside and stood behind him, with two more in the hallway.

“Alexien of Winterhold,” said one, “you are summoned to appear before the Jarl. At once.”

“Wayrest, actually.”

The guard glared at him. “Fine. Alexien of Wayrest –”

“ _From_ Wayrest. Not _of_. I don't own it. Not a distinction usually made in Skyrim, but an important one back home.”

“Call yourself Emperor of Rorikstead for all I care. Just come with us.”

“Rather late, isn't it? We'll all be happier if the Jarl grants me an audience in the morning.”

“You misunderstand,” said the guard, and casually moved a hand to his sword hilt. “You are to appear at once to answer for your crimes against the people of Windhelm.”

Alexien raised an eyebrow. Even if that were true, a judicial appearance would normally be held during the day, in full court. “And what are my crimes?”

“Assault by means of magic.”

“Ah.” Nevermind that _he_ hadn't cast any spells. “Let's be on our way, then.”

One of the guards was still looking around. “Where's your companion?”

“My companion?”

“Tall woman, dark hair, brown eyes, also alleged to be a mage. The Jarl has summoned you both.”

“Katrin, yes. She's out shopping.”

“Shopping.” The guard glanced out through the window, where the night was pitch black.

Alexien shrugged. He started running through spell calculations and concluded he could _probably_ influence the guards enough to make them forget about Serana, if it came to it.

“Regardless,” said the guard. “You are to come with us at once.”

“May I leave her a note? To tell her to come to the castle when she returns.”

The guard made an exasperated noise, but nodded stiffly. “Keep it short. Then come on.”

Alexien walked over to a small table, tore off a piece of paper, and wrote in a quick hand:

_Katrin: The Jarl has kindly invited me to enjoy his hospitality tonight. Don't wait up; he may press me to be his guest for some time. Enjoy your shopping. Alexien._

That would have to do. Alexien lay the pen aside, nodded to himself, and followed the guards out. At least they didn't manacle him.

They did not speak again, but led him quickly through the city and to the palace. The main hall was dark, and Ulfric was _not_ seated on the high throne; instead, the guards led him through a series of side passages, into what looked like a brightly lit office. Alexien stood facing a desk, and behind the desk, sitting in a carved wooden chair scarcely less grand than the throne, was Jarl Ulfric.

He was writing something and shuffling through papers when they came in, and held up a hand for silence when one of the guards started to speak. The old “I'm too important to waste my time on you” game, thought Alexien.

After a few silent minutes, Ulfric nodded, and handed a folded paper to one of the guards. He announced: “Jarl Ulfric, this is Alexien of Winterhold, called to answer for his crimes.”

“Good. Leave us.”

If they thought there was something odd in this command, they did not show it, but saluted without hesitation and left Alexien and Ulfric alone.

Alexien looked him over carefully. He could see why some of the people of Skyrim hero-worshipped him: he looked like a Nord's Nord, tall and strongly built, with the kind of muscles that came from decades of wielding sword and shield, with long blond hair and a face permanently set in a grave frown. Alexien suspected he consciously tried to cultivate an aura of the hoary heroes of the past. If so, it worked. Try as he might, Alexien couldn't feel scorn.

“Wasn't there someone with you?” Ulfric asked, in a surprisingly quiet but deep voice.

“She – Katrin is unavailable at the moment.”

“Hm. My information says that both of you were involved.”

“Involved in what, my Jarl?”

“Involved,” Ulfric said, somehow still quieter and deeper, “in assaulting my people with magic.”

“Only to prevent them from assaulting me with their fists, my Jarl.”

“That kind of flippancy will do you no good here. I advise you to answer honestly and simply. Remember, in my hands I hold your life and your death, and I may command whichever pleases me.” He said it, not as a threat, but just as a statement of simple fact.

“In that case,” said Alexien carefully, “I answer that we were menaced and outnumbered, and used Illusion magic to defend ourselves without bloodshed.”

“A true Nord would not need to resort to magic in a mere tavern brawl.”

“Alas, I am not even a fake Nord.”

Ulfric stared at him, his eyes ice-blue. Alexien looked away.

“As it happens,” said Ulfric, “I have an appropriate punishment for you already in mind. A way for you to make atonement to the people of Skyrim.”

Ah, so now they were going to get down to the real reason why the Jarl had summoned him to a private chamber in the middle of the night.

Alexien nodded, and Ulfric continued: “You will convey my sentence to _Katrin_ ” – he said the name with a sneer, as if he knew it were a lie but it was beneath him to acknowledge the fact – “for it concerns both of you. Unless, of course, you prefer the axe.”

“I will happily hear your sentence, my Jarl. And then decide whether I prefer the axe.”

Ulfric looked pleased with that answer, and gave a smile. It was singularly humorless. “Good. You may be just what the situation demands.” He paused, presumably for effect. “There is a fortress to the west, commanding the road to Whiterun. Morvunskar. I wish to... occupy it. Its present inhabitants make that difficult.”

 _By Magnus's eye_ , thought Alexien. His brain raced ahead. If Ulfric was talking about _occupying_ fortresses in strategic locations, that meant...

Ulfric gave him a nod. “I see you understand me. Good. Clear the fortress, and hand it over to my commanders. If you die in the attempt, I will of course count that as the fulfillment of your sentence.”

“And what is the nature of the fortress's present inhabitants? Surely your household troops are better suited to killing bandits than a humble student such as myself.”

“I told you not to be flippant, or I may not be merciful. But to answer your question: The fort is not held by bandits. It is held, if my information is accurate, by a group of necromancers. And thus a humble student such as yourself and your doubtless equally humble companion are just the people to send.”

“I could refuse,” said Alexien.

“Yes.”

“Or accept, and then just leave the city, ignore the fort, and not return.”

“Yes. You could. But allow me to counsel you against it. Both those courses of action would be... unwise. I would then be forced to make my displeasure known.”

Alexien stared. As threats go, it was a good one: It was always better not to be explicit and let your target's imagination run wild with the implications.

“How many necromancers?” he asked.

Ulfric shrugged. “I have not sent scouts, for reasons that I hope are obvious. Do you accept?”

 _As if I have much choice_ , thought Alexien. “I accept.”

“Good.” Ulfric looked down and started writing something. “Hand the fort over by midnight tomorrow, and your crimes are pardoned. You are dismissed.”

* * *

“I didn't think you liked this guy,” said Serana, as they left Windhelm later that morning.

“I don't.”

“Then why are we helping him?”

Alexien felt a stab of gratitude when she said _we_. “Limited short-term options. He saw an opportunity and is exploiting it. We're not his men, so if we die, it's no loss. But as soon as we're back at the College, I'll inform the Archmage; he'll immediately understand what it means and send a message to the Imperial garrison at Solitude.”

“So if there's a war the College will be supporting the Empire?”

Alexien snorted. “Hardly. If there's a war, the College wants to have the favor of both sides, so that whoever comes out on top will continue to leave us alone.”

“Ah,” said Serana brightly. “So the Archmage passes valuable information to the Imperials, thereby making it seem like the College is on their side. Meanwhile, he won't be displeased that you've helped Ulfric, because that'll make it seem like you're on _his_ side.”

“Well put. Isn't politics fun?”

“Not really. It's too much like having dinner with my parents.”

“In that case, please never invite me to have dinner with your parents.”

“Don't worry. If you're ever _at_ dinner with my parents, you won't be partaking of the conversation.”

Alexien sighed.

“You know,” said Serana, poking him, “being food and all.”

“Yes, I understood you.”

“I wasn't sure. You look pretty hungover this morning. And tired.”

“Oh good, I'd hate to feel this awful and keep it to myself.” He glanced at her. “You look fine.”

“Alcohol and sleep deprivation don't affect us in the same way.”

“I think I may be – yes, I am, I'm actually jealous right now.”

“Just say the word and I'll share.”

Alexien smiled but said nothing, and they walked on in silence. After some time, Serana asked: “So, necromancers? Do you think you're up for this?”

“Well, I was kind of hoping you wouldn't just be a spectator.”

“Now you tell me.” Serana looked at him. “Seriously though. This could get ugly.” After a moment, she added quietly: “You know what'll happen if we lose, right?”

Alexien paled, but nodded. “I think I can handle the necromancers, depending on how many of them there are. Most of them are just hedge-mages who've learned a few Conjuration tricks but aren't good at much else. Not like a proper wizard. But I would very much appreciate your help in preventing their undead legions from tearing me to pieces.”

“Oh, that's easy enough,” said Serana, with a rather disconcerting grin. Alexien decided he didn't want to ask.

They arrived at the road leading to the fort around noon. Some distance away, they ran into Ulfric's soldiers, who had formed a blockade. An officer nodded to Alexien and let them through, and they walked up the path to the main gate. It was a huge archway that must once have held a portcullis, flanked by towers of stone, crumbling but still massive.

Alexien looked around. The battlements were empty. “It looks deserted.”

“It's not,” said Serana.

Alexien raised a hand. Serana was ready for it, this time, when he cast Detect Undead. But it was still uncomfortable, and she felt suddenly exposed.

“How many are there?” she asked.

“Undead? A lot.” He raised his hand again, and Serana braced herself for the odd sensation, but it never came. “And at least one living necromancer, but it's hard to tell. The one feels... blurry. They're either out of range or shielding themselves from detection somehow.”

“Necromancers surround themselves with so much negative energy, it probably confuses your spell. They would feel sort of... in between life and undeath.”

“That would explain it,” muttered Alexien. “In that case, I'm fairly confident there are between zero and fifty necromancers inside.”

They stared through the entrance for a minute. It really did look abandoned.

“I'm with you,” said Serana.

He nodded. “Thank you. All right, let's get this over with.”

He loosened his sword in its sheath, took a potion out of his pocket and downed the contents. Serana caught the scent of those odd grapes again. Then Alexien cast an armor spell on both himself and her, and walked inside. She followed a few steps behind.

They came into the courtyard, and for just a second Alexien thought that they were too late, and someone else had already beat them there and cleared the castle. There were just _so_ many dead bodies scattered around everywhere. A heartbeat later his brain realized what that meant, and as if in answer they started to clamber to their feet. There were bandits, Orcs and Nords and Dunmer, and some corpses in torn traveller's garb, even a few soldiers in sky-blue uniforms. Desiccated flesh sloughed off bone, untendoned jaws hung open; their eyes were empty, alien.

Alexien stopped counting at twenty, and in panic started sending jets of flame and sunfire left and right and ahead and left again, as the corpses closed around him. He conjured what looked like a whip made of fire in his right hand, and it lashed out and burned through whatever it touched, sending up a smell of charred flesh and scorched hair, but there were more of them, always more.

“Serana!” he shouted, and conjured a shield to deflect an axe blow, and the whip wrapped around a dead throat and seared it to ash. “Little help?”

“Oh, I thought you were just showing off for me,” she said calmly. But she planted her feet in a wide stance, and reached deep inside herself, and touched the dark power at the core of her being. She threw both hands forward, and extended her senses, looking for the threads of energy binding the dead to this world, holding them captive against the laws of nature and the gods. She found them, and severed them.

Alexien conjured another shield and threw back an unarmed corpse that had hurled itself at him, and cast more fire at another, fighting desperately in close quarters – and then he felt a wave of cold, slippery energy pass over him, and the dead just... stopped, and fell to the ground, unmoving.

He stopped, and looked around, then back at Serana. She smiled innocently. “By the Eight,” he breathed.

“I told you: undead legions, easy.” She walked up to stand beside him, but looked a little unsteady, however she hid it. “I will take one of those potions, though.”

He handed her a small glass bottle wordlessly, and she drank it and threw the bottle aside. She started to say something sarcastic, then suddenly shoved Alexien back, hard; he stumbled but kept his feet, and an instant later a spear of ice landed where he had been standing.

Oh, right, the necromancers.

There were three. All, of course, in hooded black robes (Alexien made a mental note to make fun of them for being cliché, once they were dead). One – evidently the one that had just tried to kill Alexien – was walking down some stairs from the main keep, wielding a staff and throwing frost spells with every step. Two more came up through the courtyard, and they were already summoning wards and trying to re-raise the dead.

Priority one: not fighting another zombie army. Those two had to die first.

Alexien shouted a challenge, raised his own shield in his left hand, and advanced on them. Serana was counterspelling the wizard with the staff – perfect, they worked well together – so he shoved that from his mind, and focused on the two apprentices.

He estimated they were thirty steps away.

Five steps – firebolts slammed onto his barrier, dispersed harmlessly. He shot lightning at one, forcing him to stop raising a corpse to defend himself. _Keep them focused on their wards_ , Alexien told himself.

Five more steps – they had successfully raised another zombie, and it battered on Alexien's shield. He felt the shield waver and threw more energy into it, shoved the undead aside, and kept advancing, kept casting lightning. He would run out of magicka soon, but that was fine, if he reached them.

Five more steps, halfway – he picked up his pace and started running. Another zombie came at him from his right, and it went down in fire.

Ten steps, almost there – they panicked, and stumbled back and threw fire and frost at random, and missed. Alexien channeled his remaining strength into his right hand, and threw it forward as pure kinetic force, and they raised their wards again to protect themselves.

And then he was in range, and he dropped his defenses and leapt forward, grasped the sword at his hip; out it swept in one motion, and they weren't expecting that, and the edge bit into one's side between his ribs, and he screamed and fell.

The other stepped back, and opened his mouth. Maybe he was going to surrender. Maybe he was going to lay a curse. Alexien didn't give him a chance.

He took a deep breath, and turned back to see how Serana was faring.

To someone who couldn't sense magic, he thought, it must have looked humorous. The necromancer was standing about a dozen paces from Serana, and kept swinging his staff in a grand arc, and throwing forward his hand; but Serana kept turning to the side and flicking her wrist casually, and nothing happened.

But Alexien could sense the enormous energies that the wizard kept gathering, forming into a curse, only to have Serana disperse the power again, scatter it like smoke when a fire is extinguished. What she was doing looked easy, but it wasn't, and he knew it was taking all her concentration to pull apart her opponent's spells before he could cast them.

This was no hedge-mage with a few cheap tricks. He must have been from the College, once.

Alexien felt his magicka returning, and threw lightning with his left hand. The wizard blocked it easily, but to do that he had to take his focus off Serana, and she saw her opening and hurled a projectile of ice at him. He managed to bring up a shield in time to block that, but the impact drove him back a few feet. Alexien moved closer, reached out with his power again and tried to touch the necromancer's mind, and cast Fear.

Alexien felt the spell start to take, the panic surging up – he was surrounded, and alone, and his enemies were stronger, his allies were dead, he would die – but, somehow, the Illusion fractured, and the necromancer raised some kind of psychic wall, and pushed the terror aside.

But it had taken too long. Serana stretched out both arms, and her hands glowed an eldritch red, and the man screamed in pain and despair, seemed to collapse in on himself. Alexien gave himself no time to feel pity, and finished him with his sword.

And suddenly they were alone, and the castle was quiet all around them. Serana was breathing hard. Alexien felt light-headed.

“You all right?” he asked Serana.

She nodded. After a moment, she gestured at his sword. He wiped the blood off and sheathed it. “Nice work, with the blade,” she said. “I was expecting an epic mage duel though.”

Alexien pointed back at the two apprentices, undistinguished among the other dead. “So were they.”

They spent some time looking around. Alexien examined the wizard's staff. It was cracked, probably from forcing too much magicka through it during the fight with Serana, and so worthless. Serana found a few reagents and a rather nice dagger, ebony-bladed, which she took. Alexien found a few spell tomes, which he glanced through once and then set aflame.

They returned to Ulfric's officer, and informed him that Morvunskar was theirs. Then they left to look for somewhere to camp for the night, alone. Neither wanted to return to Windhelm.


	7. Back to College

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this is getting a lot more love than I was expecting. Thank you all so much for the support and comments!
> 
> I know this chapter is a bit rambling at times, but I really, really wanted the College to seem like a real place, with its own depth and its own life and activity going on. I intentionally opted for more rather than less here. But soon we'll be back to the solo adventures of Serana and Alexien.

The cold had never bothered Serana. It was one of the many advantages of being what she was.

Even she had to admit, however, that crossing the mountains during a blizzard was a bit much.

Alexien, by contrast, was not particularly fond of the cold even under normal circumstances. Now he was constantly channeling a low-level fire spell around himself, just so he wouldn't collapse into a snow bank and be buried alive by the storm.

They had expected the journey from Windhelm to Winterhold to take no more than a day, at most two. The weather was chilly but had shown no signs of turning bad. But as they traveled over the winding mountain paths north of the city, a sudden storm had blown in from the west, with a biting wind in their faces and snow falling so thick they could barely see the path. Instead of turning back, they pressed on. With magic they could at least keep themselves warm, and heal frostbite, and force a path through snowdrifts; but this added another kind of exhaustion whenever they found shelter and stopped for the night. Even Serana was so uncomfortable that she couldn't find it in her to make fun of Alexien, and he didn't resist when she suggested they share a cloak to sleep in. Alexien fell asleep feeling the faint rise and fall of her breathing beside him.

The one advantage of all this, Alexien had pointed out, was that it was utterly impossible for anything to be following them. Serana acknowledged that the snow would probably cover their scent. Yet she kept looking behind them, and said nothing.

Finally the blizzard blew itself out, and a little later than they had expected they arrived at the village of Winterhold. The date was 1 Morning Star, the first day of 4E 201 (and Serana's birthday, if she had cared to tell him).

They mounted one final snow-covered hill, and the high towers and stone walls of the College of Winterhold rose before them, perched precariously but somehow defiantly on a jutting precipice of rock. Even at a distance Serana could _feel_ the ambient magic. The external structure was perhaps a bit decrepit with age, but that only added to its character; it was like a weathered mountain face, worn and jagged yet still indomitable, invincibly ancient. It looked like everything she had imagined a school of magic should be.

The town – or rather village – of Winterhold was significantly less impressive. There was a medium-sized hall for the jarl, a structure or two that might be inns or shops, a few forlorn houses (some clearly abandoned), and nothing else.

As soon as the College came into view, Alexien's face broke into the most genuine smile Serana had yet seen there. It had no trace of irony or amused sarcasm. Something about that expression made her reach out and stop him, just before they entered the village.

“Hey,” she said, as he turned to face her. “Can we talk a minute before we go in there?”

“Of course,” he said, surprised.

“This place – it's important to you, right?”

“It's the closest thing I have to a home,” said Alexien. He watched her curiously, wondering where this was going. Serana would have liked to know that as well; there was just something she wanted to say, if she could figure out what it was.

“Exactly,” she said. For just a second an image flashed across her mind, and she remembered the two of them standing together outside Castle Volkihar, talking before they went inside.

“I just...” she started again. She glanced at his face. “I don't want to hide here,” she said suddenly, and realized it was true.

“Hide?”

“Who I am. _What_ I am. None of this 'Katrin' nonsense.”

He frowned. “I'm sorry if –”

“No, it was a good idea to be cautious,” she said. “Out there. Here, I just want to be myself.” She glanced at his eyes again, and then quickly away, with sudden doubt. “That's... a really bad idea, isn't it?”

He considered a moment. “Even if it were,” he said slowly, “I think I would understand.” She looked back at him, and he gave her a quick smile before continuing: “No, it may be possible. The College is fairly open, compared to the rest of Skyrim; currently it even tolerates some forms of necromancy. I think it may already have had a vampire or two as guests before. Let's not go around _flaunting_ the fact that you're an ancient vampire princess” – she hit him playfully on the arm – “but you don't have to hide it if you don't want to. I'll tell Mirabelle and Savos, and I'll vouch for you; and if they're okay with it, no one else can object.”

“What if they're not?”

Alexien shrugged. “At a minimum I can guarantee your safety. They have to respect that if I claim you as a guest. Then you could wait in the inn, and I'll get what we need from the library and we'll leave again as soon as possible.”

Serana considered. He had talked of the College so warmly so many times, she knew what he must feel to be returning. And yet he was willing to cut short his stay. She felt a stab of gratitude and guilt.

“It's up to you,” Alexien said after a minute.

Serana took a deep breath and nodded. It felt refreshing. “Let's risk it.”

Alexien's face broke into a grin. “Good. Is it weird that this is kind of exciting?”

“Openly introducing me as a blood-sucking demon of the night who's been wheedling my way into your brain?” She smiled back. “A little, yeah.”

“Well, that's your fault then,” said Alexien, turning and continuing towards the town. “You wheedled more successfully than you intended.”

“How was I supposed to know how gullible a mark you'd turn out to be?”

They walked down the main street of Winterhold. Truth be told, Serana realized, it was the _only_ street in Winterhold. There were few enough people out; of those they saw, about half smiled and waved at Alexien, and half shrank back from the two of them. These glared with even more open hatred than she had seen in Windhelm.

“They blame the College,” said Alexien quietly. “They still think we caused the collapse. And... it doesn't help that the Jarl is known to be friendly towards Ulfric.”

“Awkward,” muttered Serana. “But some of them seem to be on your side, at least.”

“We try to help when we can. Healing and basic charms, things like that. And they know that if the College weren't here, Winterhold would have disappeared entirely.”

A narrow stone bridge covered a chasm between Winterhold and the College. The near side was guarded by an archway; to Serana, the air around it seemed to hum from the vibrations of layers upon layers of protective wards. As they approached, a woman stepped out of the archway – an Altmer, Serana realized; one of the few in Skyrim. She nodded once at Alexien, and then gestured questioningly at Serana; Alexien just nodded back silently, and the woman stood aside to let them pass. Serana felt the defensive enchantments part like a veil.

They crossed over the narrow walkway, which had little enough to stop someone from tumbling off and falling into the sea, a very... very long way down. Serana wondered if there were some sort of magical protection she couldn't sense, or if the wise masters of the College were simply not concerned with mundane matters like death from fall damage. But then they came to the main entrance and passed under a tower, and a wrought-iron gate parted automatically before them, and Serana's jaw fell open.

They were in a wide courtyard lined with stone buildings, with a stone tower at each compass point. Directly opposite them was a huge structure with double doors of bronze, emblazoned with a stylized all-seeing eye – clearly the main building of the College. In the center of the courtyard was a large fountain, and around it were... trees. Green trees, with leaves, and soft vibrant grass, and spring flowers in full bloom.

The snow stopped. The chill breeze that Serana only just then realized had been blowing in her face fell away. The air immediately felt warmer, almost comfortable, and was faintly scented with rose and jasmine.

“No wonder the people in Winterhold hate you,” Serana said.

“Well, Shalidor founded the College here so it would be isolated, but most of the residents aren't from Skyrim,” Alexien said defensively. “You can't expect people used to the climate of the Iliac Bay or the Summerset Isles to want to deal with year-round ice.”

“And you can’t expect people who live out there” – she gestured back at the snow still falling outside, then ahead at the garden – “not to resent people who live in here.”

Alexien ignored that. He had spotted another member of the college, an older woman pacing around the courtyard. She was writing something and frowning down at the paper; a large book she was carrying functioned as a portable desk. Alexien raised a hand and called, “Mirabelle!”

The woman looked over, still frowning, but when she saw Alexien she _almost_ smiled. She walked over towards them. “Alexien. I assumed you were dead. Welcome home.”

“Not quite yet, though there were attempts,” he said. Serana noticed that the woman spoke with exactly the same accent as Alexien; indeed, his seemed to get slightly stronger while he talked with her. They greeted each other with a kiss on both cheeks, and then Mirabelle stood back and looked him over.

“You've been busy,” she said in a clipped tone. It wasn't a question.

“It's been... eventful. I'll write everything up and send you the manuscript. And talk to Urag about the new finds, of course.”

Mirabelle waved an arm dismissively. “Nevermind. Rest a while first. We'll be glad to see you at dinner in the hall tonight.” She glanced questioningly at Serana.

“My apologies,” said Alexien. He stood aside and gave a slight bow. “Serana, allow me to introduce you to Mirabelle Ervine, Master Wizard of the College of Winterhold. Mirabelle, this is Serana, a friend of mine whom I have invited here as a guest, and a skilled mage in her own right.” Serana bowed respectfully.

“Charmed,” said Mirabelle. She raised an eyebrow at Serana, then looked pointedly back at Alexien.

“And she's also sort of a vampire,” he added.

“Ah,” said Mirabelle, with a look at Serana, as if recognizing something. “I assume she's part of the reason you were gone so long?”

“Part of it, yes.”

“Alexien. Have you ever in your life done anything normal?”

“I've always considered that a relative term.”

“Let me rephrase: Have you ever considered _not_ making my life difficult?”

“I haven't been around to bother you since last summer,” Alexien pointed out.

“Yes, and how nice it was,” Mirabelle said, but she was smiling. She glanced back at Serana. “I'm sure there's an interesting story here, and I'd love to hear it, but you know you'll need to bring this up with the Archmage first.”

“Way ahead of you. Is Savos in?”

“In his study. Be off, then.” She turned to Serana. “You seem nice enough.” She looked like she was going to say more, but just nodded, turned, and walked off.

“I think that's the most friendly I've ever seen her be with someone she just met,” said Alexien.

“I'm flattered,” said Serana. “She took that better than I expected.”

“She has a thousand other things on her mind, and is probably already thinking ahead to how she'll accommodate you at dinner and still keep the apprentices away from you.”

“So I don't eat them?”

“No, so they don't pester you with questions and try out new spells on you. No one would mind one or two apprentices going missing.” He gave her a quick glance. “Seriously though, maybe don't eat anyone here.”

“What, not even you?”

“No, that's okay. Mirabelle _definitely_ wouldn't mind if you ate me.”

Serana smiled. “So, she's in charge here?”

Alexien actually chuckled at that. “Basically, yes. Technically the Archmage, Savos Aren, is in charge. But Mirabelle is Master Wizard, which means that she handles most of the day-to-day minutiae involved in keeping a hundred or so mages together without anything accidentally or intentionally getting blown up.”

Serana noticed a few other people wandering the courtyard, giving them curious but not unfriendly looks. “What's your position here, then?”

“I'm a magister. Which is just a fancy way of saying I'm a full albeit junior member of the College, entitled to teach an apprentice, but not one of the ranking masters of a specific school – like Tolfdir, for instance, is Alteration Master.”

“And Savos is Archmage. He's the one we need to talk to next?”

“Exactly. He'll be in the Hall of the Elements, over there.”

“Let's go, then, instead of standing around here.”

Alexien nodded, and they strode over to the massive bronze doors, which opened for them without a touch when they got close. Alexien led Serana down a hallway and up some stairs and down another hallway, and finally came to a closed door. He knocked.

“Enter,” came a voice. Alexien opened the door.

Mirabelle had described the Archmage as being “in his study,” but the room seemed too grand for that. It was as large as most inns, and must have taken up a full floor of the building. The walls were lined with bookshelves, overstuffed with stacks of books standing on other books, besides a miscellaneous assortment of artifacts, devices, memorabilia, contraptions, and some of what may just have been art-objects. There were several tables and desks in the middle of the room, some with piles of still more books and papers, some with alchemical workstations of glass, some covered with chalk drawings and sigils that looked to be for enchanting.

At one of the finer desks, writing, sat the Archmage, Savos Aren, a tall dark elf in midnight-blue robes, trimmed with fur. He looked up as they entered and gave a half-smile.

“You're not dead.”

“Yeah, Mirabelle and I just covered that,” said Alexien.

Savos nodded. “Nirya will be disappointed. She tried to start a betting pool, how long it would take your for corpse to be found, but she abandoned the scheme when I put down that you were still alive.”

Serana thought that sounded almost like a compliment.

Savos stood up and approached them. He gave Serana an odd look, and she would have sworn his eyes flashed over the Elder Scroll on her back.

“You've brought a guest,” he said simply.

“At my invitation,” said Alexien; he emphasized the words. “Mirabelle has met her, and she sent us to you.”

“Naturally.” Alexien started to introduce Serana, but Savos raised a hand and turned to Serana. “I'd like to hear you speak for yourself. I, as I'm sure Alexien has told you, am Savos Aren, Archmage of the College of Winterhold.”

“Serana,” she said, with a slight bow that Savos did not return. “Of the Volkihar clan of vampires.”

“The Volkihar? I thought they were exterminated centuries ago.” Savos looked at Serana curiously. She said nothing. “Regardless, I thank you for your honesty.”

“We hoped,” said Alexien, “that you would give your permission for Serana to stay here temporarily, as my guest.”

Savos said nothing, but looked pointedly at Alexien. “You're willing to vouch for her?”

“I am.”

“And you trust her?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“We've... been through a lot together. She's saved my life more than once.”

“Look at me.”

Alexien raised his eyes, and Savos stared into them for several seconds. He nodded. “You don't seem to be under her influence. Unless she's more subtle than most. Tell me,” he said, turning back to Serana, “why are you here?”

She hesitated. “Knowledge.” Savos kept staring at her, and she went on: “About Elder Scrolls. There's something Alexien is helping me with, something important, and we wanted to consult the library here.”

Savos glanced at Alexien, who nodded. “A worthy goal. You understand, of course, that I will not allow you to endanger the students or members of the College.”

“Of course.”

Savos was silent. After what felt like an age, he nodded: “You have my permission to stay, if you are willing to abide some conditions. During your residence here you will neither harm nor feed upon any associate of the College, nor will you do anything that may damage the reputation of the College; else you will answer to me directly. And yes, that is a threat. Do I make myself clear?”

She stared into his eyes, hard and calm. He was not afraid to stare back. “Crystal.”

“And?”

“And I accept those conditions.”

“Good. In that case, Serana of the Volkihar, I extend to you the hospitality of the College of Winterhold. You are a guest under the protection of Magister Alexien de la Roche, and you are welcome here for as long as he is present.”

Serana felt herself grin, and bowed. “Thank you. You will have no cause to regret your kindness.”

“I trust not,” said Savos stiffly. Then, a little more gently: “I hope we will be able to converse later with more freedom. We usually dine in common in the main hall. I'm sure that you could tell us much of interest.”

“Some, perhaps. Thank you.”

“We have guest rooms that I hope you will find comfortable. Speak to Mirabelle, and she will arrange the details.”

“I'd... prefer to stay with Alexien, if possible.”

Savos raised an eyebrow. “You are welcome to do so, if he agrees.”

Alexien looked a little surprised, but nodded.

Savos turned back to him. “I assume, then, that under the pressure of this ‘something important’ your stay this time will be short. When do you expect to leave again?”

“We haven't discussed it,” said Alexien. “But not for a few days at least. Hopefully longer, if possible.”

“Good. Before you depart, be sure to speak to Tolfdir; he was looking for you. And I believe your apprentice Brelyna has missed your guidance.”

“I'll be sure to speak to them both,” Alexien promised. “By the way, before I forget – there are two more things, of some importance.”

“I'm listening.”

“First: it's possible that we've been followed here by other vampires significantly less friendly than Serana.”

“They will be rather unhappy, if they try to pass the wards uninvited,” said Savos dryly. “But I will alert Faralda and her team. Put it from your mind.”

“Thank you. And...” Alexien hesitated, then spoke slowly and carefully. “And second: I met Jarl Ulfric of Windhelm. He... _requested_ our help in clearing out a fortress on the road from Whiterun for him.”

A moment's confusion, then comprehension flashed over Savos' face. “I see. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will take the appropriate steps.”

“Thank you, Archmage.”

Savos nodded. “Very well then, you may go. And welcome back.”

As they left, Serana asked Alexien: “So, what now?”

“Well,” he said thoughtfully, stopping in the courtyard, “now you are officially welcome. Feel free to make yourself at home, and go where you will.”

“That was... easier than I expected.” She felt joy and relief, as if laying aside a burden she had carried so long she had forgotten about it – but also, somehow, disappointment.

Alexien laughed. “Me too, honestly. Now, if you don't mind, before we do anything else, I would like to visit my quarters and change into something a little drier and less travel-stained. We can find some spare robes for you as well, if you'd like. Then we can go to the Arcaneum – the library – or whatever else.”

Serana nodded, so they walked back into the courtyard and into one of the other towers. This one was smaller, significantly less grand, but furnished comfortably enough. It had several floors, each opening onto a central lightwell filled with sunlight from a glass dome high overhead (that would be annoying, Serana thought). The walls were studded with heavy doors of oak. Alexien led her up a flight of stairs and onto a landing, which similarly had rooms radiating off the interior shaft. He set his palm against one of the oaken doors, and Serana felt a little _snap_ of displaced energy, and the door opened. Alexien gestured politely for her to go in first.

There were two hexagonal rooms of stone, both smallish but not uncomfortable. The first was clearly a study of some kind, with a heavy desk in the middle of the room surrounded by a few wooden chairs, with rather overburdened bookshelves lining the walls, and a pair of closed cabinets. One wall had a door to another room, where Serana could see a bed with a wardrobe and some other wooden furniture. There were – Serana all but sighed with relief – no windows to let in sunlight; instead, Alexien waved a hand, and the rooms were filled with magelight, coming evenly from everywhere and nowhere.

Alexien bade Serana be at home, and went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. She decided to examine the bookshelves. They had an odd mix of rather recondite treatises on magic, mostly theoretical, and mundane literature. Histories and novels seemed well represented here; these presumably belonged to Alexien, and weren't from the College library. There were also a number of handwritten scrolls. Serana picked one up to examine it. The main text, in heavy black ink, looked to have been written by a feminine hand, but the margins were thickly annotated in pencil of a different handwriting.

Alexien emerged a few minutes later, dressed in somewhat more ornate robes than he had worn while traveling, blue trimmed with silver. He had laid aside his sword, and held a wooden staff in his hand.

“You have a staff,” said Serana.

He frowned. “Yes?”

“An honest-to-goodness wizard's staff.”

“I'm an honest-to-goodness wizard.”

“I'm just taking this in,” said Serana, smiling at him. “Breton. Mage. Staff. When you were a child, did you _aspire_ to be a walking stereotype? Did you point at the illustrations in cheap adventure novels and say, 'I want to be that when I grow up'?”

“Pretty much, yes,” said Alexien. “Except I was a teenager, and my master handed me a staff and said 'Be careful with this or I'll summon a Dremora to beat you with it.'” He spun the staff end-over-end in his hand. “It's a perfectly valid tool for focusing magicka when you have to do something big and complicated.”

“Not to mention phallic,” said Serana. “Big and phallic.”

“Well, when in Skyrim.”

Serana laughed.

Alexien gestured at the scroll Serana still held. “I see you've found some of my apprentice's work.”

“The Archmage said her name was – Brelyna?”

“That's right.”

“I can't really picture you teaching.”

“That's because you've mostly seen me when something is trying to kill us,” said Alexien. “Truth be told, most of my life is boring. When I'm not traveling, it's all books, and writing, and annotating other people's writing, and dining with the rest of the College, and talking over our wine.”

“It sounds lovely.”

“It... it is, actually,” he said, smiling.

Serana lay the scroll aside, and continued looking around. After a moment she spoke: “Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For not minding me being... me,” she said. “For traveling with me, and not making a big deal out of it. And for letting me be open here, and vouching for me publicly like that. It feels – I can't even tell you, but it truly means a lot to me.”

Alexien started to say something, but couldn't figure out what. His throat felt tight. So he just nodded, and hoped she understood.

“I've never –” Serana said, then stopped. After a moment, she started again: “I've known basically two kinds of people. The first is my father's minions at the castle, who fawn over me and lie and compete for my favor because of who _he_ is. And the second is mortals from whom I carefully hide what _I_ am. They're at least... sincere. Until they find out I wasn't. Then it... it doesn't really go well after that.”

“Whereas I've always known… about you, since the very first moment we met, and just make jokes about it?”

She shook her head. “You just treat me like me. Despite... _everything_. And I don't really know what to do with that, if I'm being honest.” She gave him a weak smile, and then quickly looked away.

He felt warmth, gladness rise up and spread through him – but also a sharp stab of guilt, telling him he didn't deserve her gratitude. _You still doubt her sometimes,_ it said; _you still have misgivings. And you're deceiving her if you pretend otherwise._ He silently told that voice to shut up.

But... maybe it had a point. He promised himself that he'd try to make it up to her in the future. He owed her that much.

“So,” she said after a few seconds, and he knew she wanted to change the subject, “you have an apprentice. Does that mean you used to be someone's apprentice here?”

“Indeed it does,” he said, relieved, but also painfully disappointed, to talk about something else. “Savos's, actually.”

Serana raised an eyebrow. “Trained by the Archmage himself, huh? Impressive.”

Alexien grinned. “I was very fortunate. I was still young and stupid and had just come here from High Rock, and Savos kind of took me under his wing. He was... exactly what I needed at the time.”

“Meaning what?”

“His attitude towards magic, towards the College. He really believes in them. That magic isn't a plaything for bored politicians or a tool for crafty ones. You have to understand – in High Rock, everythingis about _politics_. We have mages, sure, and some of them are pretty powerful. But magic isn't an art _or_ a science. Just another part of the Game, part of the endless whirl of competition; just another ribbon to wear as decoration, another fulcrum to lever for advantage. You're a viscount – great; you're a viscount _and_ a mage, even better; now flirt with this girl you don't care about so you can marry her and your third cousin gets her uncle's vote at court. That kind of thing. I swear, if I have to go to one more vapid evening party where every meaningless conversation has political subtext to its political subtext –”

He cut himself off suddenly, and smiled in embarrassment. “Sorry. I know, I'm bitter about a lot of things some people would cut off their right hand for.”

Serana shook her head. “Gold-plated chains are still chains.” She would know.

He gave her a grateful look, then continued: “Anyway. Savos wasn't like that. He drummed it into my head that magic is both a worthy calling and a grave responsibility. Knowledge, study, practice – those are good, are noble, for their own sake.”

Serana's mind flashed back to the long nights she had spent practicing with her mother, draining her magicka until her body swore she had nothing left, and then pushing herself still further; the hours quietly bent over an alchemy table, the care, the focus, the patient precision; the glory of finally, _finally_ succeeding. She nodded at Alexien. “I know what you mean.”

Alexien nodded. “But that’s not enough. What good is hoarding up knowledge about the fires of creation if you don’t _do_ anything with it, if you don’t _think_ about what you _should_ do with it? With magic you also have to face new choices, options that aren’t available to everyone, with consequences most people don’t have to worry about. Sometimes those choices are easy. Sometimes they’re ugly, monstrous things, and you’d rather ignore them. But ignoring them is also a choice, and also has its own consequences. Maybe you wash your hands of something, do the 'right' thing, salve your conscience – and maybe a dozen innocents die, so you can feel better about yourself when you look in the mirror.”

They were silent a while. Serana bowed her head thoughtfully. Finally she spoke: “I understand. More than you know.”

Alexien sighed, and seemed to deflate. “Not that I'm any _good_ at any of that. I still have no clue what we're doing here, to be honest.”

“And we _won't_ have a clue,” said Serana, poking him, “until you stop procrastinating and take me to this library you've been promising. I'm starting to think it doesn't actually exist and you just made it up to lure me here under false pretenses.”

Alexien's mouth twitched. “Well, we can't have you losing faith in me. Ready when you are.”

She nodded in agreement, and they left Alexien's quarters. Serana left the Scroll under about a dozen wards, and Alexien resealed the door with a little _pop_ as the bands of energy snapped back into place.

Something was gnawing at Serana, but she couldn't put her finger on it. As they were walking, she asked: “Out of curiosity, besides his attitude _about_ magic, what actual magic did Savos teach you?”

“I helped him research wards, mostly. Various kinds of defensive magic,” he said. “Rites of sealing and unsealing, every kind of ban and barrier and containment spell you can think of. Savos is... kind of obsessed with defensive magic, actually – he has to be, to protect the College – but it was good for me. He could break every seal I ever created, but always encouraged me to try again.”

Serana nodded to herself, and something fell into place in her mind. The Archmage was someone who wanted to keep something in his past locked away. Possibly figuratively _and_ literally. The consequences of one of _his_ choices, maybe? She filed that information away.

“I'm actually rather good with wards now,” Alexien said, a note of honest pride in his voice. It sat well there. “Better even than some of the masters. You've seen me casting a few of the spells Savos and I worked on together.”

“I've noticed,” said Serana, smiling. “The first night we met, I thought that gargoyle was going to smash you into paste.”

Alexien laughed. “And so it would have done. The base of that shield Savos taught me, but Tolfdir – the Alteration Master, I think I mentioned him – showed me how to tweak it to protect better against physical as well as energy attacks.” He paused, then volunteered, a little hesitantly: “I can teach you, if you're interested.”

Serana shook her head, still smiling. No one back at the Castle would have shared knowledge like that. If someone thought of something good you could be damn sure they'd keep if for themselves. Alexien, bless his innocent little heart, didn't even realize the contrast he was making. “I'd like that. Maybe I'll even return the favor.”

A short walk across the courtyard later, and they were back in the main building. Alexien led the way up a wide stairwell, which opened onto...

What Serana instantly decided was her favorite place in Tamriel.

They were in an enormous chamber, oval-shaped. Every conceivable surface was covered with bookshelves: bookshelves on the walls, bookshelves lining a central corridor, bookshelves behind desks, mounds of unshelved books stacked on the floor. Some of the shelves were open, some locked under glass, some loaded with assorted magical bric-à-brac and piles of loose parchment. Serana looked up at the ceiling, to see whether it somehow held yet more bookshelves. It didn't – but those set into the walls stretched all the way up to meet it, impossibly high over her head.

She seized on that word, _impossibly_. The size of the chamber _was_ impossible: the entire building, seen from the outside, couldn't have contained a room half this size, either in height or length or breadth.

Alexien was watching her, with a smile on his face. “Welcome to the Arcaneum,” he said.

“How much of this is illusion?” she asked him.

“None.”

She allowed herself to stare for a moment longer, then closed her eyes, and forced herself to remember why they were there. She looked towards the opposite end of room, where a robed figure behind a tall desk sat watching them.

Alexien approached, and gave a nod of acknowledgement to the mage at the desk, a grim-looking Orsimer who had to be the librarian. Serana insisted that he introduce her. Alexien did so with only moderate hesitation, and named him as Urag gro-Shub.

The introduction went... well, actually. Urag had already heard about her from Savos. He threatened her, but no more than he threatened everyone. Serana threatened him back. They laughed (well, she did). When it looked like they were in no danger of killing one another and had settled into a comfortable mutual hostility, Alexien coughed and addressed why they were there.

“We need information about Elder Scrolls,” he told Urag. “And ideally someone who can read one.”

One of Urag's eyebrows twitched slightly, but didn't quite rise. Serana had the impression that that was an extravagant gesture, for him.

“Your timing could be better,” he told Alexien. “We just hosted a Moth Priest here for eleven days. He left six days ago.”

Serana's breath caught. “What was he doing here?” she asked quickly.

“Reading,” said Urag. There was an understood _Obviously_. “Said he'd heard there was a Scroll in Skyrim, and came up from Cyrodiil to find it. Stopped here first to investigate.”

“And what did you tell him?” asked Alexien.

“That we don't have and never have had one. But he still wanted to see what we had, so I showed him a few volumes.” His gaze narrowed. “What's this about?”

“What's it ever about, with Elder Scrolls?” said Alexien. “Some incomprehensible prophecy that may or may not be about the end of the world.”

Urag... didn't look disturbed by that. Just annoyed, as if personally insulted. “Don't bother,” he said. “Everyone knows you can't trust the Scrolls.”

“Excuse me?” said Serana.

Urag looked at her. “Everything in the Scrolls is true,” he said. “Even the stuff that contradicts all the other stuff. Maybe _especially_ the contradictions.” He shrugged. “That's not the same thing as _telling_ the truth.”

“Meaning?”

“Everyone knows there are three rules about the so-called prophecies in the Elder Scrolls,” he growled. “Or everyone _should._ First, they always come true. Second, they never come true in the way you expect. Third, trying to stop them is the best way to bring them about.”

Alexien and Serana said nothing to that, but just looked at each other. Alexien thought Serana looked troubled. Serana wondered whether Urag was unusually insightful, or just had an unconscious gift for ill-omened exposition.

“Where did the priest go?” asked Alexien, eyes still on Serana.

“Dragon Bridge. Said he'd heard rumors that there was a Scroll there. Refused to listen facts, reason, logic, or evidence to the contrary. But you can probably catch up to him there, and he'll be happy to ignore you just as resolutely. Name was Dexion Evicus.”

“We'll do that,” said Alexien, turning back to Urag.

Urag grunted. “Careful. Remember what happened to the last College mage who got obsessed with the damn things.”

“Septimus Signus,” said Alexien, when Serana looked puzzled. “He went... slightly mad.”

“Completely mad,” corrected Urag. “Barking, raving mad.” He paused. “Still a genius, though.”

“Is he still alive?” asked Alexien, with some surprise.

“No idea, now. But he was as of about a year ago. He dutifully sent in a manuscript to add to the collection, just as if he were still a scholar in residence here. _Because he's mad_ ,” he added pointedly.

“I'd like to borrow it,” said Alexien. “And whatever else you have about Elder Scrolls.”

“Sure, don't listen to me, I'm just one person here who continues to be _not totally insane_ ,” muttered Urag; but all the same, he went off and started collecting a few books. Serana watched him. Sometimes he pointed at book on one of the shelves high above their heads, and it obediently hopped out of its place and into his hand. His gruffness was gone, and Serana would swear he was humming a song to himself.

He came back a few minutes later, and dropped a stack of books in front of Alexien. Serana immediately grabbed the one on top, titled _Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls, by Septimus Signus, College of Winterhold, 4E 199_. She read the first paragraph, raised an eyebrow, and read it again out loud:

“ _Imagine living beneath the waves with a strong-sighted blessing of most excellent fabric. Holding the fabric over your gills, you would begin to breathe-drink its warp and weft. Though the plantmatter fibers imbue your soul, the wretched plankton would pollute the cloth until it stank to heavens of prophecy. This is one manner in which the Scrolls first came to pass – but are we the sea, or the breather, or the fabric? Or are we the breath itself? Can we flow through the Scrolls as knowledge flows through, being the water, or are we the stuck morass of sea-filth that gathers on the edge?”_

“Barking mad,” Urag repeated.

Alexien sighed. “There might still be something useful. I'll take the lot.”

“Sure,” said Urag. He pushed a particular volume into Alexien's hands. “Read this one first. Poluhnius, _Effects of the Elder Scrolls_. Good description of exactly what happens to the minds of people who _mess around with Elder Scrolls_. There are vivid and memorable illustrations.”

Alexien gave a slight bow, picked up the stack, and motioned for Serana to follow him out. She shook her head; when he looked at her quizzically, she shooed him out of the Arcaneum, saying that she had some research she wanted to do, not to wait on her, she would fill him in later. Alexien glanced between her and Urag with some trepidation, but nodded, and against his better judgement turned his back and walked out.

* * *

Alexien sat in his study, reading through _Effects of the Elder Scrolls_. Urag was right: it confirmed his opinion that he never, ever wanted to try to read the things himself. Not unless he wanted the raw, unmediated thought-experience of millennia of creation unfolding through his conscious brain all at once, flattening his sanity like a blade of grass overborne simultaneously by the duelling floods of reality and unreality.

Call that _Plan B_.

There was a knock at his door. He called “Enter,” and after a moment the door cracked open, and a young Dunmeri woman peeked around.

“Brelyna,” said Alexien, standing up to greet her. “Welcome. Please come in.”

“Is it true you came here with a vampire?” she asked breathlessly, without any preamble. She took a seat in front of Alexien's desk.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Everyone's talking about it,” she said. “So is it true?”

“If it _were_ true,” he answered, “why might I have done such a thing?”

Brelyna frowned. “Hypotheticals again already?”

“I'm your teacher. It's my job.”

She tapped her fingers on the desk. “Well, the obvious answer is that there's something at the College that it –”

“She.”

“That _she_ – really? – she wants, and she's using you to get it. Illusion, probably, to control your thoughts and make you think it's a good idea.”

“You can't _control_ people's thoughts with Illusion. Just give them a forceful nudge in a particular direction. But yes, that's a possibility. Problems with it?”

She tapped her fingers some more. “Well, if it's true and you're her thrall, then you'll have to do something about me now that I've guessed the truth. So if I leave your office safely in a few minutes, it's false.”

“Quite possibly. And I approve you thinking of your own death by treachery so calmly and rationally. What other reasons could there be?”

“You could just tell me,” she said pointedly.

“I promise I'll tell you you're right, if you figure out the answer.”

Brelyna looked thoughtful. “It's something so important that you willingly joined forces with a vampire, even knowing the risks to yourself.” Alexien said nothing, so she went on: “And it has something to do with Elder Scrolls.” He gave her a surprised look, and she just gestured at the title of the book he had been reading.

“Very good,” he acknowledged. “Yes, it involves an Elder Scroll, and people who would like to do something with it that both Serana and I would rather prevent.”

“Serana, is it?” she asked brightly. “First-name basis?”

“You're very impudent, you know.”

She grinned. “Can I meet her later?”

“I'll introduce you. First though, I should probably pretend to be a good teacher and ask you how your studies have been going during my absence.”

“I've been practicing my illusion with J'zargo, as you told me. He's not keen on the idea, since it doesn't involve blowing anything up. But his resistance actually makes it better practice.” She paused. “Plus Khajiiti minds are _weird_.”

“Good, good.”

“And I've been reading everything you recommended,” she continued. “Rereading some. I don't get _Reality and Other Falsehoods_. I can't tell if the author is fond of bizarre metaphors or really thinks of the laws of physical reality as semi-sentient entities who are _persuaded_ by Alteration magic to change their mode of ontology.”

“I've always thought of it as metaphor, but Tolfdir insists it's the latter, or as close to the latter as can be expressed in ordinary language. But good. And your Restoration?”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, Onmund cut the tip of his finger off while preparing alchemical ingredients, and I healed it for him.” Alexien gave her a sharp look. “Okay, fine, I'm the one who cut the tip of my finger off, but I still healed it.”

“Good. But Restoration deserves more practice than waiting around for accidents to happen. I know Nirya thinks it's a soft subject, but that's only because she stays here at the College, where Colette's always around to fix whatever goes wrong.”

“So I'd get more Restoration practice if I went out into Skyrim?”

“I'd prefer if you just went to help out in the town of Winterhold, but –”

“Hey,” said Brelyna brightly, as if the idea had just occurred to her, “ _you_ go out into Skyrim all the time, if I just went with you –”

“No,” Alexien said firmly.

“Come _on_ , I'm actually the same age as you, I just look young because elves age more slowly. And think how much more practical experience I could get!”

“It's not all exploration and finding exciting new artifacts. It's dangerous. This last time I almost ended up dead any number of times.”

“All the more reason you should _take me with you_ next time you go out.”

“No,” said Alexien again. But he smiled at her. “Ask me again after you pass your trials, and then, if you’re still interested, we’ll discuss it.”

“And when can I do those?”

“When I say you're ready.”

“And when will that be?”

“When you stop asking me.”

She sighed. “I really hate you, you know.”

“That's the spirit,” said Alexien brightly. Brelyna stuck her tongue out at him.

Alexien drummed his fingers on the desk for a minute. “Actually, though,” he said slowly, “there is something you can do to help.”

“Really?” She perked up.

“Really. It's a very important task I wouldn't entrust to anyone but you.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed, “it's reading a book, isn't it?”

“An important book,” said Alexien.

“One you don't want to bother reading yourself?”

“One I don't have _time_ to read myself.” He fished out Septimus' _Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls_ and passed it to her. “I need to know more about Elder Scrolls. The author of this is a genius, but he's also completely mad. I need you to read it and try to make some sense, any sense at all, of what he's talking about.”

She opened the book and read over the first paragraph. “You must be joking,” she said. “This is incomprehensible. It barely counts as language.”

“If it were easy, I wouldn't be asking for your help.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Alexien smiled. “Brelyna. I know this isn't particularly glamorous. But it may be very, very important. Thousands of lives may very well depend on information in that book.” He paused to let that to sink in. “That's not an exaggeration, I mean it literally. I'm asking for your help with this, not just because I'm your teacher and can boss you around for fun – though I am, and I can, and it is indeed fun – but because you're someone I trust, and I have full confidence in you.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said. “Whatever you can tell me about Septimus' insane ramblings will be valuable. Read it, think about it, read it again, think about it some more, and let me know anything that strikes you as interesting or noteworthy, no matter how small. Just don't write in the book, or Urag will have my head.”

Brelyna nodded eagerly. “I won't let you down.”

“You never have yet. Well, maybe the time you were practicing Calm with Drevis and you hit him in the face with a frozen toad.”

“I still have no idea how that happened,” she muttered.

“Me either, but it was impressive.”

Brelyna got up to leave.

“One last thing,” said Alexien. “Remember to do something for fun. Read a book you enjoy that has nothing to do with magic.”

“Like I have time,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“You'll feel better and it'll help you stay sane. What do you like to read?”

“I do enjoy Colovian poetry,” she admitted.

“Perfect.” He took a book down from his shelf. “Go take this out into the garden and read sometime. Trust me, it'll help.”

She nodded, stuffed the book into an already full pack, and walked out.

* * *

“So,” said Serana.

“So,” said Urag.

They stared at each other silently for a moment.

“What do you want here, vampire?” demanded Urag.

“I'd like to do some reading.”

“Nothing here to interest you. None of these books is written in blood.” Urag paused. “No, scratch that, there are a few. But the point still stands.”

“What, that I'm a vampire and therefore illiterate?” Serana scoffed. “I've been alive a long time, I've probably read more than you.”

“Hmph.”

“Besides, what exactly are you afraid I might do, crack the spines open and sink my fangs into the paper?”

“Who knows? Don't care what you _might_ do to these books, only what you _will_ do, which is nothing.”

“The Archmage personally named me a guest of the College, you know.”

“Good for you. But this isn't the rest of the College. This is the Arcaneum. Outside these walls, Savos is in charge; in here, it's basically my own little plane of Oblivion.”

Serana gave him a smile.

“And none of that mental shit,” growled Urag. “Won't work.”

“I wasn't going to. I promised to behave myself while in the College.”

“Good.”

“But as you just pointed out, you don't consider this room part of the College proper.”

Urag glared at her.

“So I guess I'm technically free to do whatever I want in here.”

Urag continued to glare at her.

“Look,” said Serana, changing tack, “all I want is few chronologies. I just need to figure out when something happened.”

“Is that all?” asked Urag, sounding almost disappointed.

“That's all.”

“Hmph.” Pause. “Fine. No harm in letting you _look at_ a copy of Ignateous' _Third Era Timeline_. Look at, I said; you're not taking it anywhere.”

Serana smiled. “That's fine. But I was also looking for something a bit... older.”

“ _A Brief History of the Empire_ , four volumes?”

“That too, please. But still, older.” Serana paused. “Oh, and anything you have about the culture of High Rock. Separate project.”

“Find you have unlimited time to kick up your feet and relax with multivolume histories?”

“I am literally immortal,” Serana pointed out.

“Hmph.” Urag sounded impressed against his will. Someone willing to read all of _A Brief History of the Empire_ apparently for fun was someone he could deal with. “You'll want the _Pocket Guide to the Empire_ , third edition. And Longleat's _Wayrest, Jewel of the Bay_. Nothing on Daggerfall: Alexien hates Glenumbrans, he'd never forgive me.” The corners of his mouth twitched. Was he... making a joke?

“Perfect,” said Serana. “But about the chronologies...”

“Zetzes' _Chronologia Primae Aetatis Secundaeque_ , three volumes. But I warn you, it's full of lies, all but impossible to read, and boring to boot.”

Serana sighed. “I'll still take a look at it, thank you.”

Urag left and went to the shelves, and came back a few minutes later with a small mountain of books. “Here. Enjoy.”

Serana cracked open _Chronologia Primae Aetatis Secundaeque_ and glanced over the first page:

 _1E0: Kinge Eplear foundeth the Dynastie Camoranne, and ordereth alle scribes and learnèd mer of hisse Demesne that they do date alle dates fromme that date here aforesayd. 1E1: Epleare Kinge inviteth all the noblesse of hisse Demesne to fête moste grande, wherein he ordereth that there be servèd alle mannier of bêtes, includinge the Alfiques, the Himgats, the Druhes, the Argonnes_ –

“Yeah, I warned you,” said Urag, watching her face.

Serana sighed again. Then she glanced at Urag and had an idea. Why not? She didn't have to keep it a complete secret. Urag wouldn't care. “Actually,” she said, smiling at him, “while you're here, maybe you could help me figure out a few things?”

* * *

“A thousand years!” Serana almost shouted at him, dropping the large book down on his desk with a thud. Alexien jumped and looked up from his own stack of books.

“I'm sorry?” he asked blankly.

“A thousand years,” she said again.

“A thousand years,” he repeated. He looked tired. “That would be some time during the Interregnum. Second Era.” He looked at her a moment. “Oh. You figured it out?”

“We did indeed. Urag was very helpful.”

“Really?”

“I think it’s been exactly 966 years, actually,” Serana continued, ignoring him, “but Urag insists it was 954 and I don't know what I'm talking about. It all depends on the reign of one of the petty kings of Solitude during the Interregnum and whether Emeric became king of Wayrest before or after he – anyway, yes, I was in that crypt for either 966 or 954 years.”

“That's... wow.” Alexien ran a hand through his hair. “You don't look a day over 900.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I am. I was already... not particularly young when I went down there.”

“Right,” said Alexien.

“I _am_ a vampire, you know.”

“I know,” he said.

But he was watching her with an odd look on his face. She decided to change the subject, and gestured at the open books scattered over Alexien's desk: “So how's this going?”

“Not great,” Alexien admitted. “I'm not able to find much general information about the Scrolls that'll be of any use. We're definitely going to have to find that Moth Priest.”

Serana said nothing. He rubbed his eyes.

“Maybe,” he said, “if we knew more specifics about how Harkon interprets the prophecy. 'Vampires will no longer need to fear the sun' – that could mean anything from they'll be invincible, to they will all be cured of their vampirism, to they'll all be exterminated and so no longer be around to fear anything. If we just knew what _he_ thought it meant...”

“Well,” said Serana, drawing out the word, “it's just possible that I might actually know a teensy little bit more.”

Alexien stared at her.

“Possibly,” she said again. “Maybe.”

“And you didn't feel like sharing this incredibly relevant information?”

“Not really, no. Not around Isran. And it might not be _that_ relevant. As you said, the prophecy itself could mean almost anything. Harkon's interpretation might be completely wrong.”

Alexien sighed. “I'll take whatever you can give me.” He glanced up at her and smiled awkwardly. “Yeah, I know, I left myself wide open there, you don't have to dignify that with a response.”

“Shame. I have a good one too. I guess I'll just save it.”

Alexien tapped his fingers. “The prophecy?”

“My, aren't we impatient today?” said Serana, grinning.

“ _I_ at least won't be able to wait another 966 years.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, mortals. Your obsession with time is so boring.”

He stared her. She smiled innocently.

“Fine, fine,” she said, still grinning. Then her smile faded. “Remember, as I told you before, I never heard the actual prophecy, and my father didn't exactly make his plans a regular topic of dinner conversation.”

Alexien nodded.

“That said, I picked up a few things. Being alive for centuries gives you a plenty of time to 'accidentally' overhear things you're not supposed to know.” She took a deep breath. “As far as I can tell, he thinks it means he'll... have power over the sun.”

“Have power over the sun,” Alexien repeated.

Serana grimaced. “Yeah. That he'll be able to put it out. Extinguish it, hide it, obscure it, whatever. That he'll be able to usher in an age of _literal_ eternal darkness.”

“That's...”

“Yeah.”

“That's just idiotic,” said Alexien.

Serana looked at him. “Well... yes, obviously my mother and I didn't want to invite a war with all of Tamriel, so –”

“Not that!” Alexien paused. “Well, yes, that too. But I mean, come on, put out the _sun_?”

“Yes?”

“Plants kind of need the sun,” he said. “As in, without it, they die. Ever see plants growing in a cave? No sun, no plants. No plants, no animals that eat plants. No plants or animals, no humans that eat plants and animals. No humans – wait for it, this is the crucial step here – no humans, _no vampires_.”

Serana opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. She'd always been so focused on _stopping_ her father that she never actually considered the implications of what would happen if, gods forbid, he succeeded.

“So,” Alexien continued, in an infuriatingly calm tone, as if he were explaining it to a class of students, “even if Harkon does somehow succeed in putting out the sun – which is still just insane, by the way – he's killing himself as surely as if he puts a stake through his own heart. Or at best condemning himself to eternal starvation.”

“Not that that'll be much consolation to the plants, animals that eat plants, or humans that eat plants and animals,” she pointed out.

“Hm.” He sat back and considered that a moment. “Good point.”

“Besides,” Serana went on, “my father is insane, not stupid. Well... usually. There has to be more to it. Like, he would be able to control when the sun is on or off, something like that.”

“Or perhaps it would be possible to remove whatever it is in sunlight that hurts vampires, without removing whatever it is that benefits plants,” Alexien said, mostly to himself. “I wonder if that could be it.”

“I'd like to find out,” said Serana, “but stopping him should probably take priority over doing his theorizing for him.”

“I really don't like it when you're the reasonable one. It defeats the purpose of having a wizard on the team.”

“I always thought the purpose of having a wizard on the team is so that enemies go for you as the squishy one, then while they're distracted I rip their spines out.”

“Is that something you can actually do?” he asked. “Or are you just trying to be all ominous and creepy?”

Serana was suddenly very interested in examining her fingernails, which, Alexien had to admit, looked rather sharp and able to do unpleasant things to skin and flesh. Probably pleasant things too.

Wait, what?

He shook his head, and shoved that entire line of thought far, far away. It took him a few seconds to remember what they had been talking about. “Well,” he said, “now that Isran isn't here, is there any other information you might like to share? Maybe... do you know anything about Harkon's supposed invincibility? The word I think you used was 'protected.'”

Serana hesitated. “Just... speculation,” she said slowly.

He nodded for her to go on.

She looked suddenly uncomfortable again, as he'd seen her before, arms folded over her stomach.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “You don't...”

Serana shook her head. “No, you're right, it might be relevant.” She hesitated again. “I think... yes, there's some sort of power that protects him, and I think it's... Daedric.”

He said nothing. She forced herself to add, in a small voice: “He... was always a worshipper of Molag Bal.”

Alexien looked up sharply, shock on his face. And recognition. Serana could tell that he was thinking back to their conversation at the inn. She desperately hoped he wouldn't say anything about it.

He stared at her for a moment, then... just nodded. “Noted. Moving on, then.”

“You...?”

“Moving on,” he repeated firmly. “So our next step has to be finding the Moth Priest. Same plan: he reads the Elder Scroll, and we find out exactly how to stop the prophecy.”

Serana flashed him a grateful smile, then tried to resume her old manner. “And hope that Urag isn't right about how the Elder Scroll prophecies all work.”

“The good news,” said Alexien, “is that if he _is_ right, and we're going to fulfill the prophecy by trying to stop it, it's likely to have nothing to do with what Harkon thinks it means. Maybe – as I was saying – it really means that all vampires will be cured or something.”

“I believe you said 'exterminated' was also a possibility,” Serana pointed out.

“I'm willing to take that risk.”

“So brave.” She hesitated, then added: “By the way. Please don't... refer to it as a 'cure.'”

“Oh,” he said, surprised. “I'm –”

“I'm not a disease,” she said.

“Right. I apologize. I didn't mean... anyway, doesn't matter. I'm sorry.”

She nodded at him. “So. You were saying what our next steps should be. Moth Priest?”

“Moth Priest,” he agreed quickly. “The road west, towards Dragon Bridge. We might be able to catch him.” He sighed. “I had hoped we might be able to stay here a while, but it looks like we have to leave soon after all.”

“Sorry about that,” said Serana. “I wish we didn't have to.”

He smiled weakly at her. “So, tomorrow morning, bright and early?”

“Early, preferably not bright.”

“As cold as it's going to be, I can't say I agree.” He stood up. “Anyway, I think we're expected at dinner. You're invited but not obligated to come, especially since...”

“No, I'll come,” she said, standing up with him. “I'll just have some wine and then slip out later to visit the town. But I'd like to go with you.”

* * *

Dinner in the great hall hadn't been bad, really. Everyone had at least been polite. Alexien had introduced her to a few people, including his apprentice Brelyna, who was charmingly curious about everything, and delightfully easy to tease. Sure, conversation with Serana had been... strained, at times, but only because no one seemed to know what to say to her. No one ever explicitly alluded to her being a vampire (except Brelyna) or intentionally did anything to make her feel unwelcome. It was a better reception than she usually got – and, she reflected, better than Alexien had received at _her_ home. Given enough time, they might even have eventually grown comfortable with her being there.

Alas, that time would not be forthcoming. She and Alexien would have to leave the next morning.

So they got up a little before dawn, still sore from the previous days' traveling, and started getting ready to depart.

There came a knock at the door, and, without waiting to be invited in, Mirabelle entered. She was already fully dressed and looked as stiff and prim as ever. Alexien did not seem surprised to see her, and gave her a nod: “Mirabelle.”

“Alexien.”

“I’m glad you’re here. Could you make my apologies to Tolfdir? Savos said he’d been looking for me but I haven’t been able to catch him. And he wasn’t at dinner last night.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. It skipped my mind yesterday.”

Serana stopped what she was doing and looked up.

“Yes?”

“Your timing leaves a lot to be desired,” said Mirabelle. “Tolfdir has been gone too, but he stopped in about a week before you did, hoping to get your help with something. When he found you weren’t here he took a couple of the apprentices and went back to the excavation site.”

“Saarthal?” asked Alexien, surprised. “What could he want there?”

“Apparently they found a hidden chamber, unopened, but placed under a powerful magical seal. A complicated one, he said. Tolfdir wanted you to take a look at it before he brute-forced it down.”

“Hm. It’s a shame I missed it,” said Alexien with a shrug. “I’m sure it would have been fascinating.”

“You haven’t missed it,” said Mirabelle. “That’s the message. He was concerned, and said they’d wait to open the chamber until you or Savos had time to examine the seal.”

“That’s… interesting.” Alexien looked thoughtful a moment, then turned to Serana. “Do you mind? It’s on the way west from here, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours for us to stop by.”

“I’d mind,” said Serana, “if we _didn’t_ stop to see the ruins of the first human city in Tamriel. The College is excavating it?”

“Sort of. I’ll explain on the way.”

“Good,” said Mirabelle. “Alexien, safe travels. Come back soon this time.” She glanced at Serana. “And I hope you will have time to be our guest again.” And without waiting for a response, she turned and walked out of the room, leaving Alexien and Serana alone.


	8. Forbidden Legend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all again for your support and patience! I'm a slow writer sometimes, but I plan to write at this steadily, and it /will/ be finished.
> 
> I know the College questline sucked and everyone hated it, but I need parts of it for reasons that I hope will eventually be clear. I promise to do everything I can to make it not suck.
> 
> Slight variances from canon ahead. There will be more.

The excavation of Saarthal had begun a hundred years previously, at the (then) nadir of mage-Nord relations. It was the brainchild of Archmage Deneth, who saw it as a way to rebuild a sense of community between the population of Skyrim and the residents of the College. A _joint_ excavation, carried out under the combined auspices of the Archmage and the Jarls, would not only serve the immediate goal of seeing (mostly non-Nord) mages and (mostly non-magical) Nords working together for a common end, but would also hold concrete advantages for both parties.

After all, thought Deneth, what red-blooded Nord didn't know Saarthal as a place of revered legend, or wouldn't be interested in learning more about a city so important in the stories of Ysmir? The history of Saarthal was the history of the Nords themselves; why wouldn't they relish the opportunity to learn more about their own past, about their hoary ancestors from the days of legend?

And if the excavation of Saarthal, a place famous in antiquity for its power and its spellcraft, happened to remind everyone that magic had been part of Skyrim's history since the very beginning, well, so much the better.

So Archmage Deneth wrote letter after letter to the Jarls, and sent members of the College throughout the towns and villages of every hold, proclaiming the wonders, the glory that such an undertaking promised for _all_ the peoples of Skyrim. It was slow work. Year followed year, and often he despaired. But finally his project began to take shape. He secured the support of the Jarls and the enthusiasm of the populace. The College was behind him, and Skyrim was ready to follow. A bright future beckoned.

It all went wrong.

Right from the start, the dreams of cooperation never materialized. The College sent its most learned scholars and its most skilled wizards, and the Jarls of Skyrim provided (and paid for) a large and brawny workforce recruited from among the local Nords. So, yes, mages and non-mages were working side-by-side. But not doing the same work. The members of the College were the planners and supervisors and examiners, who decided where and how to dig and who pontificated over the significance of what was found. The Nord workers were the hired labor, who dug and lifted and carried and cleaned and sweated, and who generally did as the mages bade them do. There may well be no other way to carry out an excavation; but however reasonable in itself, such an arrangement, in such a situation, was not likely to promote a sense of community and fellow-feeling. And indeed it did not. The workers did not trust the mages, the mages did not respect the workers, and the two sides concurred only in a settled mutual antipathy.

And then the deaths started.

The first thing the excavation learned was that Saarthal was a place full not only of ancient history, but also of powerful curses and deadly traps. And draugr. So many draugr. Really an obscene and completely unnecessary number of draugr.

When the mages were present, they easily dispelled the curses, hexed down the traps, and burned through the draugr. But when they were not present – which was most of the time, since they were usually in their tents, analyzing, planning, theorizing – the Nord workers took heavy casualties.

After that, it was decided that every digging team would be accompanied at all times by at least one apprentice. But then several of these apprentices were also found dead. By chance – or perhaps, it was whispered, _not_ by chance – these all happened to be elves. No one could prove whether they had fallen heroically in battle against the undead or (as was rumored) had been treacherously murdered by resentful Nords; and so this, too, only fanned the flames of mistrust and hate.

Thus the project fell apart amid mutual recriminations, and what had begun with such high hopes became yet another source of bitterness between the College of Winterhold and the rest of Skyrim. The Jarls withdrew their support, and the Nords turned their backs and went home.

The College, however, stayed at Saarthal. It was still too valuable, filled with too much of the knowledge they craved like wine, to abandon. Yet progress slowed to almost a halt. Workers, when they were available at all, had to be hired at extortionate rates; and apprentices, it was found, had many talents, but brute physical labor was not among them. Thus even a century later the city was far from fully excavated. Little had been mapped, and whole districts were still believed to lie undiscovered. There were still curses and draugr aplenty. And so Saarthal remained a place of mystery and of danger.

* * *

All this Alexien explained to Serana on their westward hike. They had left Winterhold that morning, and by now the afternoon sun was pleasantly warm on his face. He gripped his staff tighter, using it to steady his steps on the ice-covered hills, and ignored Serana's jibes. She, of course, was completely unfazed by the cold and trod snow and ice with the same grace as if she were in a ballroom. And made sure he noticed.

She was an attentive listener. She always had been, he reflected. Whatever he talked about during their journeys, she always showed a quiet, unobtrusive interest, and had a way of wordlessly inviting his confidence. She either considered him a close friend, or –

No, that was it. Serana considered him a friend. He had resolved to be better about trusting her, and this time, at least, it was easy to believe what was so obviously true.

He smiled to himself, and briefly lost the thread of what he had been saying, until she put him back on track, teasing.

They walked on, and Alexien let his mind wander. It had wrenched his heart to leave the College again so soon. He hadn't said anything about that to Serana, not wanting her to feel guilty; but he suspected she knew anyway. He also hadn't said anything about how much he had enjoyed having her there, however briefly; but he hoped that she knew that too.

He slipped and stumbled for a moment before regaining his footing, and glanced ahead at Serana. She was practically skipping over the ice, contentedly humming a tune to herself while she waited for him to catch up. She looked utterly at peace.

 _That_ , however, couldn't be true, and by now he knew her too well to believe it. The weight of their task was too great to be so lightly forgotten. And he knew she had troubles and worries and regrets of her own. Some of these she had confided to him, even if it was clear she didn't like talking about them. Others he guessed at, but would never ask about.

He hoped she enjoyed traveling with him as much as she seemed to. That he might occasionally be some comfort to her, even for the things they left unsaid. There was, he admitted, little enough he could do or say to help. But perhaps he could live up to being the friend she thought him to be.

* * *

"Well, this is… not what I was expecting," Serana said.

"You were expecting something a bit more palatial, perhaps?" Alexien asked.

"A bit less familiar. This is less 'ancient city of wonder', more 'ruined old burial crypt.'"

Alexien looked around. That actually wasn't a terrible description of Saarthal. The excavation site was familiar enough to him that he barely gave the general appearance a passing thought; but, examining more closely the broken columns and weathered stone, the cold, drafty passageways and eerie carvings, the long-abandoned rooms and long-unlit braziers, he had to agree with Serana that it looked little different from any other forgotten Nordic tomb.

"Well, it's been locked away underground for a very long time," he said flatly. "You can't expect it to look its sprightly best right from the first."

Serana raised an eyebrow at him. He smiled back innocently.

She was saved from replying by a voice calling, "Alexien!"

An elderly man was approaching them, who Serana assumed was Tolfdir. Truth be told, he didn't look much like a master of the arcane: more like a kind but absent-minded grandfather. He had long hair and a long beard, grey and rather scraggly, and was dressed in black robes that must once have been elegant, but were now patched and ill-fitting. When he spoke, his voice was warm and friendly, but somewhat hoarse. Serana's first impression was of someone easy to like, but hard to respect.

Alexien, however, gave him the deepest bow she had yet seen him give anyone, and there was open admiration in his voice: "Tolfdir, it's good to see you."

As Alexien introduced her and went through the usual script – This is Serana, and yes she's a vampire but don't worry about that, she's actually a lovely person – Serana examined Tolfdir more carefully. She extended her magical senses towards him, slowly, tentatively; but when she brushed against his aura she pulled back at once.

By the Night, he was strong. No wonder Alexien paid him such deference.

Tolfdir was looking at her now, saying something. Alexien nudged her.

"And how do you find Saarthal so far?" Tolfdir was asking.

"Oh," said Serana, "I… it's not what I expected."

Tolfdir chuckled. "You don't have to be polite. True, it doesn't look like much at first. It'll never be a prime tourist destination – not least because it's still dangerous. But we've discovered so many wondrous things here!" He gestured for them to follow him, and started a disquisition about what the changing styles of pottery and a few metal artifacts had taught them about the early inhabitants of the city.

After a while he fell silent, and Alexien asked: "So, Tolfdir – unfortunately Serana and I can't stay long, but Mirabelle said something about an unusual ward you found…?"

Tolfdir nodded. "We're going there now. In truth, it was Faralda's apprentice J'zargo who found it."

Alexien snorted. "What, he didn't try to open it himself?"

Tolfdir gave him a serious look. "No, he didn't. That was my first indication that it might be something significant."

"So how did J'zargo find it?"

"He's here with Onmund and Arniel, helping with experiments, and decided to do some exploring on his own. He found an undiscovered corridor filled with draugr. His newfound caution did not prevent him from fighting his way through them alone. But at the end of this corridor he found a large gateway, sealed with a spell, and wisely decided to inform me."

"Any idea what might be on the other side?" Alexien asked.

"None at all," Tolfdir grinned. "Isn't it exciting?"

"So exciting I'm surprised you didn't break through yourself."

Tolfdir shrugged. "Magic like this is Savos' specialty, and yours. I didn't want to risk – anyway, I don't want to bias you. You'll see and decide for yourself."

Alexien nodded. "And where are the others?"

"Elsewhere. I was tempted to have them nearby, in case we find something especially interesting or especially dangerous on the other side, but determined it would be better to keep them at a safe distance when you mess with the ward."

"Is it that worrisome?"

"You'll see," Tolfdir repeated.

They followed Tolfdir through a series of doors and down a long side-passage, which the builders seemed to have purposely made difficult to find. Serana started noticing the bodies of recently killed draugr. Rather a lot of them.

Finally the corridor opened into a large circular room. Opposite them was a large double-door, made of iron set directly into the stone walls. Serana instantly felt the electric tingle of powerful magic, and something in her head pushing her away, telling her she didn't want to be here.

She saw Alexien stumble and halt for a second, shake his head, before continuing. Tolfdir nodded at them. "Something in the ward tries to convince people to turn back."

"No," said Alexien. "A passive Illusion spell, cast on a _door_ and still effective after Akatosh knows how many centuries? No way. Something like that would take a soul gem the size of – I don’t even know, maybe a _dragon_ , something like that.”

Tolfdir shrugged.

Alexien looked around carefully. The walls were pitted with sarcophagi, empty, their one-time inhabitants scattered on the floor – doubtless J'zargo's work. But they felt mundane, no trace of magic. Not could he detect any spellwork on the floor or in the ceiling. No, all the ambient power he sensed was coming from that iron door –

As soon as he turned his attention back to it, that impulse _not to be there_ washed over him again. He almost turned around. But he closed his eyes and focused, raised his mental defenses against illusion, and tried to compartmentalize that psychic pressure, wall it off and ignore it.

Someone who wasn't a mage, he thought, would probably have already run screaming –

That line of thought wasn't helpful, and he pushed it away again, restrengthened his defenses. It subsided looking enough for him to turn his attention to the door.

He walked over to it, slowly, with Serana and Tolfdir following a few steps behind. He cautiously extended his senses to it, and fought down a renewed feeling of _wrongness_ ; and, detecting no trap, reached out his right hand and put his palm flat against the metal.

He felt the ward at once, and almost gasped.

Alexien had once tried to explain what sealing spells were like to a young novice. He had settled on the metaphor of a knot. To block something off, a wizard gathered the threads of power, condensed them until they were almost tangible, and then bound them together. Breaking the seal could be done either by finding the edges of the spell and carefully untying the knot, so to speak, or else by severing the threads of power directly. The latter method, however, risked suddenly unleashing the gathered energy, usually in the form of an explosive surge of magic. Therefore a prudent wizard – unless he fortuitously happened to have a predesigned 'key' that would let him disband the spell – would only attempt to force open a seal by slowly working apart the knotted energies.

It was simple enough, if one was careful and patient. You just had to take a minute to understand the knot, and then find the loose ends of the spell, and work backwards from there.

This spell wasn't like that.

There was no single knotted rope, nor series of knots. It was instead like a vast woven cloth, like the sail of a ship, knitted together of thousands of individual strands of magic, crisscrossing each other, over, under, back, forwards, disappearing behind other strands, suddenly reappearing elsewhere.

And there was no mechanism he could detect for a key. No easy way for the caster to reopen the seal. Whoever created this had never intended to open it; they had done it to lock something away, and forget about it, forever.

Alexien didn't even know where to _start_ with a spell like that. He couldn't find any loose threads or untied ends, nothing to grab onto and start unworking the weave.

"By the Eight," he breathed. "By Apocrypha. This is…"

Tolfdir nodded. "You see why we hesitated."

Alexien nodded.

"Can you open it?" Serana asked him

He bit his lip. " _Maybe_ ," he admitted. "But it would be faster and simpler if Tolfdir just tore open a hole in the wall."

"We considered that," said Tolfdir. Somehow his statement was almost a question. Alexien reexamined the ward.

"Ah," he said after a minute. "The seal goes all the way around. And it's designed to go off catastrophically if someone tries to brute force it down."

"Figures," muttered Serana.

Alexien stepped back, and addressed Tolfdir: "Should we just… leave this?"

Tolfdir looked thoughtful. "We considered that too, Arniel and I. But we decided it was more dangerous to leave up. We'll have to do something about it sooner or later."

"And have you considered that what's on the other side should _stay_ _there_?" Serana asked. She knew what kind of things might be sealed away like this. "Someone put this here for a reason."

"We have. Better for someone responsible and capable to open it here and now, and let the College take care of it, rather than leave it for some unwitting adventurer."

Alexien nodded in agreement.

"So," said Tolfdir, "your friend Serana asked the right question: Can you open it?"

Alexien closed his eyes and thought for a moment. He knew Tolfdir wouldn't judge him for saying no. Would probably respect him more, honestly.

"I think so," he said. "I'll try." He glanced over his shoulder at Tolfdir and Serana. "You two might want to stand back, though."

He started to turn away, but Serana reached out and grabbed his arm. He turned to face her. She looked worried. "Are you... sure this is a good idea?"

 _Oblivion, no._ "Of course. I'm a wizard; tampering with forces we don't really understand is our whole thing."

Tolfdir coughed delicately.

"Just a joke," Alexien added quickly.

"Of course," said Tolfdir. "We will stand back, then. Be careful, and don't hesitate to stop if it's too much."

Alexien nodded, and turned his attention back to the door. He heard the two of them walking away. Serana was telling Tolfdir something humorous and reassuring, but he paid it no mind.

Back to the ward.

Alexien couldn’t have said how long he stood there, just examining the spell. Half an hour, an hour? More? His whole awareness was focused on the threads of the spell, oblivious to all else. His mind searched over the pattern of energies, pried through it, penetrated it. He gently pulled here and there at errant cords of magic, looking for an edge to the spell, a place to begin unraveling it. He was concentrating too firmly even to feel frustrated.

Finally – there! He found the spot where the casting originated, where all the threads of energy were first bound together. It was covered over with a separate ward, this one weaker and clumsier. He easily dispelled it with an effort of will. Then he could start the real work of unmaking the main seal.

It wasn’t just subtle, it was _strong_. He took a moment to regather his focus, and again planted his palm flat against the door. His left hand held his staff upright; he would need it to channel more magicka, to hold the effect in place, if he was to make any impact at all.

After what seemed like another hour, but may just have been minutes, he worked loose a corner of the spell. It was exhausting, and he felt his magicka diminish; it was requiring not just patience and craft to pull the energies apart, but raw strength as well, just to move them. It was like unbending bars of iron that had been twisted together.

At once the spell resisted, pushed back, and he knew that if he let go, if his focus wavered, it would snap back into place and re-weave itself. That was fascinating, and he would think about it later. Now he renewed his focus a third time, reached for his magicka, tightened his grip on his staff, and ripped the ward apart.

He felt a surge of magic, blue-white, and for a moment feared he had triggered the spell; but it was just the entropy of random power unloosed, and it faded, and then Alexien remembered he was standing in that room in front of that door, and the arcane presence of the ward was gone.

“Well done, well done indeed!” came Tolfdir’s voice.

Suddenly he felt Serana’s presence beside him. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

He nodded.

“Good,” she said. “That was impressive.”

He grinned, and found himself wishing he had more opportunities to cut loose – not to say _show off_ – in front of her.

Serana was staring ahead, at the now unprotected iron doors. Her whole body was tense. “Can you sense that?” she asked. “Now that the ward’s down…”

Tolfdir appeared and forced a potion into Alexien’s hands. “I sense it,” he told Serana.

“Well, let’s not keep whatever it is waiting,” said Alexien. “I’m sure it’s eager to meet us.” He drank down the magicka restorative, loosened his sword in its sheath, and adjusted his grip on his staff.

Serana moved forwards and pushed open the doors with a grating sound of rusted metal. They walked through and found themselves in a cavernous spherical chamber, the ceiling stretching high above them, stairs descending down to a stone floor. In the middle of the room was a raised platform, and above the platform – where the exact center of the sphere would be, if it continued down past the floor – was…

Something. A large orb of some kind, hovering in the air and rotating slowly, giving off an eldritch blue light.

“Fascinating,” said Tolfdir.

They cautiously went down the stairs and moved towards the orb. They began to fan out unconsciously, as if trying to keep a dangerous enemy between them. Alexien was in the middle, with Serana on his left, and Tolfdir off to the right.

The orb wasn’t the only thing in the room. Just in front if it there was a stone stele, covered in a worn inscription, and behind that, just beneath the orb, was a sarcophagus.

“Fascinating,” said Tolfdir again. “Can you feel that? Whatever this is, its energy was being used to power the ward. That’s an impressive feat of magic… but why?”

Alexien shook his head. He bent over the stele. “We’ll have to take a rubbing of the inscription for Urag. I can’t read much of it.”

“Nor I,” said Tolfdir.

Serana appeared at his shoulder, looking over the inscription, and they heard her recite effortlessly:

> _Be bound here, Jyrik, murderer, betrayer,_
> 
> _Condemned for your crimes against realm and lord._
> 
> _May your name and your deeds be forgotten forever,_
> 
> _And the curse that you bear be sealed by our ward._

They both looked at her. “What?” she asked. “The writing is really old. I’m really old.”

“Fuck,” muttered Alexien.

As if in answer, the lid of the coffin suddenly split open and was blasted apart from within. Alexien hid is face from flying pieces of stone, and when he looked back, standing in front of them was…

He guessed that he had to call it a draugr. But it was unlike any of the others he had seen. It didn’t move like them, didn’t have their blankness in its eyes. Somehow there was intelligence and awareness on its face. In one hand it held an axe, and in the other – a staff.

Alexien barely had time to think the word _Lich_ , before it pointed the staff at him, cried aloud in a hoarse, grating voice, and sent a blast of pure magicka directly at him.

He raised a ward hastily, and the spell crashed against it and drove him back a step.

Serana from his left screamed something, a sound of anger, summoned lightning in both her hands and threw a blinding-bright thunderbolt at the creature. It struck it directly in the chest, full force, and –

Nothing. The draugr-lich didn’t raise a ward, didn’t stumble from the impact. Serana’s spell simply vanished away, like it had never been.

It turned on Serana now. “The orb!” came Tolfdir’s voice, but Alexien couldn’t process what he meant; the thing threw itself at Serana, and Alexien sent at it a jet of white flame, which also vanished away to no effect.

“It’s immune to magic!” Serana shouted, and charged into melee range. She had, after all, boasted of her ability to rip people’s spines out, and Alexien had seen how truly terrifying she was in close quarters. She moved inhumanly fast, and struck the thing in the face, her full weight and strength behind the blow –

Nothing again. The lich ( _was_ it a lich?) did not defend itself, did not block her attack, did not raise any kind of magical protection. Serana’s strike simple seemed to have been drained of its momentum and force as soon as she touched him. Alexien saw her blink in surprise.

It raised its staff and croaked out a word, and a wave of force threw Serana back. It moved towards her, and Alexien knew what it was going to do a second before it happened; he cast a protection spell on Serana, but it was too little and came too late. The thing’s axe swept out, and Serana tried to catch it in her hands but she was still off balance, and the edge bit deep into her stomach. Her eyes went wide, shocked.

“ _No!_ ” cried Alexien, and he sent another blast of energy at the thing, in vain. Serana sank to the floor. “ _No!_ ” he said again. _No no no..._

“It’s the orb!” came Tolfdir’s voice again, from far away, but it didn’t matter. “I can dispell it; keep it busy!”

It didn’t matter. Serana was dead, or as good as dead. He had failed her after all. Never again would he hear her voice teasing him, never again explore a new city with her, never again watch her gazing in admiration at a new landscape. She was dying alone in the darkness, in this gods-forsaken crypt deep under the earth, and he had brought her here.

This all darted through his brain in seconds, even as Serana was still falling. But, no – the creature was turning to him now, but he was watching Serana – she wasn’t dead. She lay curled up on the ground, but she was still moving slightly. He could hear her making little noises of pain. She was still alive. Hope, as sudden as the despair, flashed. She might even survive – if he could help her in time.

Alexien drew his sword and raised his staff. The lich threw another bolt of energy at him, which he blocked more easily this time. He started to cast back, but – but his brain finally caught up to what Tolfdir was saying, and he looked around for him. Tolfdir was standing in front of the strange orb, pouring immense amounts of power into it, disrupting whatever magic this was.

Tolfdir was the most capable wizard he knew; Alexien just had to trust that he could do what he said, and tear down this creature’s defenses and render it mortal. If he could distract it for just a few moments longer...

Then he could cut loose all his power and frustration and come down on this fucking _thing_ like the hammer of Mehrunes Dagon himself.

And save Serana.

Alexien raised a shield again and deflected another curse. Now that he was paying attention and knew what to look for, he could recognize that the lich (he decided to call it a lich, whatever it was) was strong, but not _that_ strong. It was more powerful than him, certainly, but not utterly out of his league. He could block its attacks. He could take it in a fair fight.

He threw a blast of sunfire at it, just to keep it angry and focused on him, and again it didn’t even try to block. Once its strange invincibility was gone, maybe it wouldn’t be used to having to defend itself normally; maybe it was too out of practice to even cast a decent ward anymore. Just a few more minutes, let Tolfdir do his work, and he could put it down.

The axe swept out at him, and he caught it on his staff, thrust with his sword, parried again, cut; the lich raised its staff and threw him back with the same wave of force it had used on Serana, but Alexien caught the axe stroke on his ward – its moves were predictable – and countered with his staff, channeling lightning through the wood. The lightning hit, and –

And it stumbled backwards from the impact. Surprise was clearly recognizable in its dead eyes.

“Yes!” came Tolfdir’s voice. “Alexien, I can hold the spell for a while; you have to destroy it!”

Alexien, feeling triumph race through him, poured sunfire into his staff and threw it at the lich; it tried to raise a ward, but as he had predicted it was slow and clumsy, and the fire struck, seared its flesh, drove it back another step.

He did it again. And again.

The third time, the lich managed to block the flame, and rounded on him in fury. It shouted again in that horrid language; a grim light arced around its stuff, and it threw that power at Alexien.

Alexien raised his staff, parallel to the ground, and cast a ward. The spell hit dead-on. Suddenly Alexien felt like a flash of thunder had gone off in his head, like a thousand screams were echoing in his ears. His ward shattered, and he felt the staff crack and fall from his hand.

Well, fuck, maybe this wouldn’t be easy after all.

But as his senses came back, the first thing he saw was Serana, lying still on the ground.

He charged, dodged another blast of power, threw a bolt of lightning that hit before the lich could react. He swung his sword, and it stepped back and started to raise its staff and open its mouth; but Alexien hit it with lightning again, and it lost the spell. He cut again, and the blade took it across the face. No blood came out, but it let out a hoarse scream of pain.

That scream was like adrenaline, and Alexien struck it again, and again. It threw fire, but he deflected it with his ward. He cut from the left, the axe blocked it; he twisted his sword around the haft, cut at the lich’s hand, and the axe went clattering across the floor.

Again it cried in fury, again it raised its staff; but again Alexien hit it with lightning before it could complete the spell. It stumbled – _there_ was his opening – and Alexien lunged, all the strength of his body and all his weight behind the strike, and thrust straight for its chest. The blade went through its heart, and sank in up to the hilt. Alexien let go of his sword there, left the lich standing impaled, and stepped back; and he channeled all his rage and panic one final time, summoned sunfire in both hands, and hurled it at the thing’s face.

It tried to scream. But he didn’t stay to watch it burn, and dove for where Serana was lying on the ground.

He knelt beside her, the battle already forgotten, and there was so much of her black blood on her shirt, on the ground – _No no no, please no_ – and she was still, and he couldn’t tell if she was alive or... Alexien reached out to touch her shoulder, to try and turn her over to see her face.

“...took you long enough...” came her voice, faintly.

Relief washed over him. He knew he should say something back, should try to reply with something sarcastic and witty, but his brain wouldn’t work. He just put his hands over the wound and poured anti-healing magic into her, as much and as fast as he could.

Serana whimpered, but the wound started to close. She moved her arms and legs tentatively, but Alexien held her down, and told her to lie still until he was done healing her. She said something that sounded like it included the words “not polite.”

“I believe it’s always polite to save a lady’s life,” he answered.

“Didn’t save,” she muttered. Her voice was a little stronger. “Had it right where I wanted it.”

He laughed. The injury was almost gone – which was good, because he was getting dizzy; but he poured the last of his strength into the spell, and the wound closed entirely. Serana struggled to sit up, and she had to take his arm, lean against him. Her dark hair fell over his shoulder. She still looked pale (paler than normal, anyway) and weak.

“Are you all right?”

“Will be,” she said in a hoarse voice. “Just... need blood.”

He tensed against her. Surely she didn’t mean – an image flashed through his mind, Serana lifting her arms and wrapping them around his neck, leaning forward, closer, ever closer to him – well, that didn’t sound _all_ bad, but he didn’t particularly relish the part about the blood. Especially with Tolfdir somewhere nearby.

She shook her head. “Wouldn’t ask of you. Potion, in my pack.”

Relief again (and also disappointment?). He hurriedly groped for the potion, and found a large glass bottle, dark red. She extended her hand, and he passed it to her; she broke open the neck and drank greedily. After a few seconds she tossed the bottle aside and looked back up at Alexien.

“Sorry about that,” she said. Her voice was back to normal. “Last night, I didn’t... anyway.” She looked over to the body of the draugr, and Alexien followed her gaze.

Tolfdir had pulled out a piece of chalk and drawn a circle around the corpse, and was reciting what Alexien recognized as a spell of banishment. Tolfdir finished the chant and turned towards them. “Just to be safe,” he said. “I’ll give you two a minute.” And he went to examine the orb.

Alexien nodded. He looked back to Serana, smiled, started to say something – then froze, and tensed again.

Serana saw something was wrong at once. “What is it?” she asked.

“I...” he swallowed. “Remember, in your crypt, the wall with the writing on it?”

“The voices you heard,” said Serana. He nodded. “You hear them here too?” He nodded again. “Where?”

Alexien’s gaze circled around the room, and found what he was looking for: a stretch of wall on the opposite side of the room, surrounded by odd carved figures, inscribed with unreadable marks that were, nonetheless, unmistakably writing.

“What does it say?” asked Serana. She seemed grave, but unsurprised.

He shook his head, got up, walked towards the wall. Like the first time, he traced a hand over the inscribed characters, all of them meaningless to him, until he found a word that suddenly made sense.

“Ice,” he said.

Serana appeared at his side, and nodded.

He glanced at her. “All right, you clearly know more than –”

“It’s dragon language,” she said.

Alexien started. “Dragon language? You mean... literal, actual dragons?”

“It was one of the things I looked up with Urag. You know, since you got too busy and _forgot_.” She gave him a teasing smile. “I’ll show you the book later. But apparently a lot of these old tombs have inscriptions like this, dating back to the dragon priests of the Merethic Era.”

“But...” he frowned. “I’ve never studied that. Why can I understand some of the words?”

“That part... doesn’t really make any sense,” admitted Serana.

Alexien traced his fingers again over the word that meant _ice_ , almost caressingly; then he turned away. “Great. One more thing for us to worry about.”

“Oh come on, you love it. Ancient lore, mysterious inscriptions, a forgotten language only you can read? I just have to make sure you remember we’re trying to save the world here.”

With that, Alexien collected his sword and they rejoined Tolfdir. He was still examining the strange orb. “Fascinating,” he said. “I’ll have to take this back to the College. The Archmage should see it.” He looked over at Serana. “I’m glad to see you’re all right. Please accept my apologies; I had no intention of dragging you into this business and endangering you so.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” said Serana. “I endanger Alexien all the time, it’s only fair he return the favor.”

Tolfdir frowned at that, but nodded after a moment. “Well, regardless, you have my thanks. I know you two must be going, else I’d invite you to stay; but I wish the both of you safe travels. Lady Serana, please take care of yourself, and of him; Alexien – be careful.”

Alexien rolled his eyes, and Tolfdir smiled affectionately; apparently it was an old joke between them. But Alexien bowed, bid him farewell, and with Serana turned and walked out of Saarthal.


	9. Prophet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential trigger warning: implied references to past rape. Nothing explicit (I will never describe that explicitly).

The couple of hours Alexien had expected them to lose in Saarthal turned into most of the day, and neither of them was in a good condition to travel far that evening. They camped in a dry spot beneath some tall pine trees a few hundred paces from the road. Serana sat idle by the fire, watching Alexien bustle about his own dinner. She assured him that she didn’t need anything, that she would be fine without feeding, that all she wanted was a quiet, restful night. But he was worried, and he fussed over her so much that she finally snapped at him in pretended annoyance. Actually she was touched, and regretted the pretense when he backed off and fell silent for the rest of the evening.

The next morning, tired or not, they left early. The Moth Priest, Urag had told them, was heading west for Dragon Bridge, and by now had to be about a week ahead of them. If he traveled slowly they might be able to catch up, but only if they pushed themselves ever onwards.

So they walked.

And walked.

The journey was laborious, but not necessarily unpleasant. The snow grew shallower, the roads firmer beneath their feet. The views of wintery landscapes, with occasional glimpses of the ocean to the north, were varied enough not to be boring, but not so fascinating that they wanted to stop and look around. Serana and Alexien soon fell back into their usual comfortable ease that they had when traveling together.

That night they were able to stop at an inn, and they asked for news of the Moth Priest. One had indeed passed that way, the innkeep told them (for a few septims), six days previously. He was traveling by wagon, with a great deal of baggage and several hired guards, and so making rather slow progress on Skyrim’s roads. That cheered Serana and Alexien significantly – they might be able to catch up after all – and they retired to their room for a few hours’ sleep before setting off again.

The next day went by the same, and they camped overnight about a day’s march from Dawnstar, according to Alexien.

And so they pressed on still further the next day.

They arrived in Dawnstar while the sun was still above the western horizon, but decided to stop for the night anyway. The town had a decently large inn, where Alexien could get real sleep on a real bed, Serana could more easily find a meal for herself, and both of them could seek for news. One of the town guard drinking in the inn had seen the Moth Priest pass through five days ago: they were still gaining. Alexien calculated they might make it to Dragon Bridge around the same time, so they went to bed in rather a good mood.

In the morning, when Serana woke Alexien, he looked dreadful. He said it was nothing, he had just had nightmares; but nonetheless he was shaken, and clearly not well rested.

“I have something to do, then,” said Serana. “Meet me just past the edge of town?”

Alexien nodded, and went to wait for Serana.

He didn’t have to wait long. The sun was just starting to dawn in the eastern sky when she appeared, _not_ from the road, leading a pair of horses across a field.

He sat up in surprise. “Where did you find horses? And how much did you have to _pay_ for them?”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Serana, smiling.

He frowned.

“The horses _wanted_ to come with us,” she said. “Well, with me, anyway. But they’ll tolerate you if I ask them nicely. You know how to ride, right?”

Alexien, still frowning, mounted the horse Serana held out for him, a tall roan-colored mare. Serana’s horse was, of course, black.

“You didn’t have to –”

“It’s for me as much as for you,” Serana interrupted him. The day’s first sunlight was pouring over the horizon, and Serana pulled her hood up over her face. “During the day is not, in fact, my favorite time to put in hard travel.”

“Oh,” said Alexien, a little abashed. They started a slow canter west along the road. “I thought... you said traveling by sunlight wouldn’t be a problem for you?”

“Well, sure, I _said_ that when we first met,” said Serana. “I didn’t exactly want to display any weakness in front of a stranger, did I? But now that you’re my thr–” she made a show of cutting herself off with a delicate cough – “I mean, now that we’re _friends_ , I don’t have any reservations about admitting that the sunlight really _,_ really sucks.”

“I’m sorry, I should have –”

“Actually,” she said, interrupting again, “you should take it as a compliment that I trust you enough to complain in front of you. Because I’m going to complain a _lot_ now.”

“I am deeply honored that you so favor me,” said Alexien, giving a little bow from horseback. “Should I return the honor?”

“No no, when _I_ whine it’s cute and endearing, when _you_ whine it’s just a sign of weakness.”

“There’s no need to bring sexist stereotypes into this.”

“You’re the one who assumed I was talking about sexist stereotypes. I was actually using a stereotype about Bretons. Totally different.”

“Then please accept my apologies, my lady,” he said, bowing again. He made it look completely sincere and courtly, a gesture hardly out of place before a queen. “I am unworthy of your great condescension.”

“I suppose I can forgive you this time,” she replied. “Since you’re cute.”

Alexien blinked, but made no other response. Serana quickly looked away and changed the subject.

They made excellent time while mounted, and drove the horses hard throughout the day. That night they came to an inn – and Serana realized, with a start of recognition, that it was the same inn they had stayed at their first night together. It had the same appearance, the same smells of woodsmoke and roasted meat and sweet apples, the same noises of people talking and people singing; but now it was all welcoming, instead of off-putting as it had been the first time.

Serana sold the horses to a merchant, since they were now too worn-out to pass another day at such a pace and she and Alexien could probably make better time on foot. But it had been worth it: when she used some of her newfound gold to pay for a room, the innkeep told them that they were now only three days behind the Moth Priest.

So they found themselves again in one of the inn’s cramped rooms, again seated at a small table sharing a bottle of wine. It was all but obligatory that one of them refer to the last time they had been here, and Serana obliged:

“I can’t believe,” she said, eyes wandering around the room, “how different it feels this time.”

“You mean, because I’m not sleeping with one eye open, waiting for you to turn on me?”

“Exactly. Now that I’ve convinced you to let your guard down, this will be much easier.” Serana smiled, then turned serious again. “But... yes, actually. I was doing the same, you know. You were a vampire-hunter, and I kept telling myself what a bad idea it was to be traveling with you. Then...”

“Then?” Alexien prompted gently, after Serana was silent a while.

“Then – I don’t think I ever told you this, but I just _knew_ you were going to betray me when we ran into Brynhild. It was too perfect an opportunity for you to be rid of me.”

“I didn’t want to be rid of you,” said Alexien. He looked surprised at himself, and quickly became interested in refilling his wine and taking a long drink.

“Oh, come on,” said Serana. She was watching him closely, her amber eyes unblinking. “At the time you did.”

“Yes... and no.”

He looked awkward and uncomfortable. Serana debated teasing him, but decided to switch back to a lighter tone: “Well then, now that you’re a connoisseur, is traveling with a vampire everything you imagined it would be?”

“Incomparably better,” said Alexien, casual again. “I was prepared for the blood and terror and creepiness, of course, but I hadn’t been expecting just how _convenient_ it would be.”

“Convenient?”

“Oh, you know,” said Alexien, now refilling Serana’s cup, “free horses, great deals on rooms in Riften, the ease of persuading people to give up information, all that kind of thing.”

“Ah,” said Serana. It was her turn to look uncomfortable. “I... wondered whether you would notice. I usually tried to be subtle about it.” Alexien said nothing, and she went on: “Does it bother you?”

“Not anymore.”

“Are you sure?” She was watching him closely again.

“It did,” Alexien admitted, “but not anymore. And in the beginning I tried not to think about it.”

“Because I could have been doing it to you.”

He shrugged, but the answer on his face was clearly _Yes_.

Serana hesitated. It was so much easier to take refuge in sarcasm, than... whatever this was. “I would never do anything like that to you,” she said after a moment. “I haven’t.”

His eyes met hers, then quickly looked away. “I know.”

They fell silent for a long while. Alexien took another drink of wine, and laughed suddenly. “Why is it,” he asked, “that we can talk so freely about nothing, but as soon as the conversation turns the least bit serious...” his voice fell away.

“I’m still a vampire,” she volunteered.

“No,” he said firmly, “that’s not it.”

“Maybe it should be.” Alexien ignored that, and Serana continued after a moment: “And besides... we haven’t actually known each other very long. It was, what, a little more than week ago that you met me again in front of Isran? After thinking that I had used you, betrayed you, and abandoned you forever?”

“Fair point.”

“Really, if anything, you’re an idiot for trusting me so quickly after that.”

“Who says I trust you? I’m warding this room all to shit later.”

“ _Later_ wouldn’t protect you if I reached across this table to grab you _now_ ,” Serana pointed out.

Alexien snorted. After a moment, he asked: “So, from a while ago, same question to you: Is spending time with a mortal everything you dreamed it would be?”

She laughed, bright and genuinely amused. “Unlike you, I’ve done this before.”

Alexien looked surprised. “Really?”

“Well...” Serana hesitated again. “Well, yes. My father... calls it ‘playing with my food.’”

“And here I thought I was special.”

“You –” she started, cut herself off abruptly, started again: “You’re the first to know I’m a vampire, if that makes any difference. And this is the first time it hasn’t ended horribly.”

“Yet,” added Alexien in a cheerful tone. Serana didn’t reply. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “That was insensitive of me. Is there... do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” Her voice was harsh, and Alexien flinched. “That is... not right now,” she said apologetically. “Some other time. Believe it or not, I’m actually enjoying this. With you. Even if I still don’t know what to do with the fact that you _know_ what I am and... you don’t mind.”

“You say that a lot,” he said absently. She looked at him questioningly. “ _What_ you are. Not _who_.”

“It’s easy to forget _who_ I am. I can never forget _what_ I am.”

“And does that bother you?”

She was silent in thought a while, swirling her wine absent-mindedly. “No one’s ever asked me that,” she said. “I think – no, it doesn’t. I’m proud of what I am and what I can do. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come with a lot of baggage.” She gave him a serious look. “And part of that baggage is... not being able to do this.”

“And yet here we are.”

“Here we are,” she agreed.

She swirled her wine some more, and took a long drink. They were silent a while.

“Can I ask you a question?” said Alexien suddenly. “You don’t have to answer.”

“I know I don’t have to answer,” said Serana, smirking. “But yes, go ahead.”

“Last time we were here, I... asked you some rather offensive questions.”

“Yes.”

“You said that I didn’t have to worry about certain things, because you were ‘different’ from other vampires.”

Serana said nothing. She could see where this was going.

“And at the castle,” Alexien went on, slowly, “Harkon also made a big point about how you’re not like the others.” When Serana still didn’t answer, he continued: “It’s probably none of my business, and I’m probably just offending you again by asking. But I’ve wondered about that. And whether it might not be relevant to all this.”

Serana half-smiled, without humor or joy this time. “I was really hoping you hadn’t picked up on that.”

“Then pretend I haven’t,” he said, “and don’t answer.”

“You’re right, though. It probably is relevant.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to say anything, if you don’t want to.”

“It does, though.” She paused. “And you deserve to know. And... I do want to tell you, as much as I don’t.”

Alexien bit his lip. “All right,” he said slowly. “If you’re sure.”

She laughed. “No wonder you need me around. When you’re trying to get information out of someone, you shouldn’t also be persuading them not to say anything.”

“I am _not_ ‘trying to get information out of you.’"

“I guess not,” she said, with a faint smile. She tapped her cup down on the table. “Well, it’s not a happy story, so keep this filled.”

He nodded, poured more wine for both of them, and waited.

“I’ve never actually told anyone any of this,” Serana said after a while, in a quiet voice. “I don’t really know where to begin. I guess... do you know where vampirism came from originally?”

“From one of the Daedra, I’ve always assumed. Molag Bal seems a likely candidate.” He frowned, then looked suddenly stricken. “Wait, is this – is this the thing I promised you I would never bring up?”

“It is. But it’s okay. I don’t mind.”

Alexien bit his lip again, but said nothing.

“So,” Serana went on. “You’ve probably already guessed... a lot of this, then. But yes, Molag Bal created the first vampire. She was not... willing. But she was the first, and most vampires are descended from her. But Molag Bal can still bestow the gift directly, and does, for those that please him.”

Alexien nodded.

“So. My family. You’ve met my father; my mother’s... not much better, actually, though I was always closer to her. I told you once that my father was a worshipper of Molag Bal. Well, that was half-true. We _all_ worshipped Molag Bal. One big happy Daedra-worshipping family.” She glanced at Alexien. “I’m sure that sounds bizarre to you. You probably pray to, what, Akatosh? No, I bet you’re a Julianos person.”

“In theory. Though the last time I prayed it was in fact to Arkay.”

She looked amused by that: the lord of burial and the cycle of life and death, protector against necromancy – and the undead. “Really? And did the great god Arkay answer?”

“I’m still alive.”

Understanding flashed through her eyes. The castle. “Ah. Right.” She paused, off-put, but forestalled Alexien when he started to speak: “No, please don’t interrupt. I _do_ want to talk about this with you, if you’re willing to hear it. I just... haven’t, before.”

Alexien inclined his head in a little bow, less courtly, more honest than usual.

“Anyway. When _we_ prayed, when we... sacrificed, it was to Molag Bal. The Lord of Lies, the Defiler, the King of Rape... the Father of Vampires. Can you imagine what sort of things one prays to a god like that for?”

“No, honestly.”

“Well, then I’ll spare you. But that’s what I grew up with, what I assumed was normal.” Serana swallowed. “Okay, this part will be hard for me to say, but just let me take my time to get it out. In those days – and still today, for all I know – there was a... a ritual, that all female members of the household were supposed to undergo, when we came of age. It was... degrading. Not exactly wholesome family fun time, but it’s not like I knew any better. And it was _expected_ of me.”

Serana fell silent. Alexien waited patiently for her to continue. She tapped her cup on the table and he refilled it, and she emptied again wordlessly. “So,” she said finally. “The point of this ritual was that, if you were _worthy_ , Molag Bal himself would... appear. My whole life I had trained for that, been groomed for that. Apparently it paid off: I was worthy. And apparently I pleased him. Because, when he was... done with me, I was like this. A pureblood vampire. A Daughter of Coldharbour.”

She spoke the last words in a tone of pride, but Alexien could tell that it was empty. And he truly didn’t know what to say, and was afraid of saying the wrong thing. If only he could do... anything, to make sure she knew that he was there for her. But doing the wrong thing would also only make it worse. And he couldn’t do that to her. But the silence stretched on. Became tight. Unbearable. Finally (half nervous, half laughing at himself) he laid his hand on the table between them. Just a silent offer.

Her hand closed over his, just for a moment, and Alexien couldn’t tell if he was more pleased or surprised. But suddenly she jerked her hand back as if she’d been caught doing something embarrassing. He blinked, and she smiled apologetically.

“A pureblood vampire,” she repeated. “Which just means that I don’t owe my vampirism to any other vampire; I didn’t catch it like a disease, I wasn’t turned by accident. I got it straight from the source, so to speak. As a gift. A reward.”

“And that... makes a difference?” Alexien asked hesitantly.

“It means I’m stronger, for one thing. And probably more fucked up in the head, based on the small sample of the other pureblooded vampires I know.” She glanced up and saw Alexien’s questioning look. “My mother’s the same. It was _expected_ of her too, when she was a girl. And the gift was also bestowed on my father – a first, I think. Presumably as a reward because his wife and his daughter had both been so pleasing to the Lord of Corruption.”

She fell silent again. After a minute she laid her hand on the table. Alexien tentatively reached out and covered it with his own, this time; and she allowed it for a few seconds before pulling away again, though more gently. “One big happy family, like I said.”

“And...” Alexien started, but stopped. Serana nodded at him to go on. “And you all... stayed together after all that?”

“Even if I hadn’t wanted to – Where else could I go? And who else would have taken me in? It was all I knew. And... they were still my family. So yes, I stayed.” She glanced at his face. “And it wasn’t all bad, even after that. I spent a lot of time with my mother; she’s the one who taught me most of the magic I know. And my father was almost normal, for a while, until he found the Prophecy. And I still had the huge castle mostly to myself and could go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted to be alone.”

“And was that very often?”

“Yes... and no,” she said, with a sad smile.

“And it was like that for, what, centuries?” Alexien asked. She nodded. “It must have been... I can’t imagine how lonely you must have been.”

Serana hesitated. For a moment she looked undecided. Then she spoke in a low, quiet voice: “I’m not anymore, though.”

Alexien glanced up at her, but said nothing. Nervously, though he couldn’t tell himself why he was nervous, he busied himself with the wine again. But Serana leaned in close over the table, as if daring Alexien to meet her eyes. He did. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to travel with you again,” she said.

“I’m... glad you did.”

Serana watched him quietly a few seconds longer. Then a smile spread over her face, and she leaned back in her seat. “Good,” she said. “So that’s settled: you’re not allowed to go anywhere. You’ve got to keep following me until your feet fall off.”

“It’s settled,” Alexien agreed. “But my feet will last all the longer, you know, if you keep stealing horses for us.”

“I did _not_ steal them,” she said indignantly. “I told you, those horses wanted to come with us.” Pause. “Once I persuaded them of it.”

He laughed, and Serana grinned back.

“All right,” she said, “it’s my turn to ask you a question.”

“Can I offer you more wine instead?”

“ _Instead_ , no. You can’t buy me off that easily.”

“Then I am at your service.”

Serana smirked at that. “Why did you leave High Rock?”

“Are you sure you want to spend your question on that?” asked Alexien, frowning. “It’s not actually a very good story. Silly, if anything.”

“Excellent: I could use an anecdote or ten where you look silly. But I’m not asking because I want you to entertain me with a good story; I’m asking because I care.”

“Well... that’s different, then.”

“Besides, I’m not as nice as you: you told me I didn’t have to answer if I didn’t want to, but I’m afraid I’m going to insist regardless.”

Alexien laughed. “Well then, if I don’t have a choice –”

“You don’t,” said Serana. “So, talk.”

“All right, I know when I’m beaten,” he said, still smiling. “I’ll start with the punchline, then: I was running away from a marriage.”

“Arranged?” she guessed.

“Got it in one.”

“Was she that ugly?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Alexien, frowning. “By report she was quite pretty. But I’d never really met her. Her name was... Jacqueline, I think? Allegedly I’d seen her at dinners, but I still can’t remember whether that’s true.” He paused. “I told you, it’s silly. But I’ve already told you how I feel about High Rock and the nobility there.”

“Self-important, empty-headed nobodies?”

“I don’t believe I’ve put it in quite those words, but in essence, yes.” He paused again. “Look, a lot of this is going to sound like I’m complaining about my parents, which will sound ungrateful and absolutely _laughable_ to you, with what you’ve just told me about yours. My father and mother are actually kind, loving, gentle people, and they deserved a better son than they got. But what they wanted for me... isn’t me.”

“I can understand that,” said Serana. “You’ll get no judgement from me. Teasing, sure.”

“And I’m regretting this already. But anyway. I had never, let’s say, inspired confidence that I would bear the family legacy with glory. And unfortunately I was – am – the only son of an only son and an only daughter, so a _lot_ of weight was thrown onto my most unsuitable shoulders.”

“Why so unsuitable?”

“Well, you know how I’m interested in stuff and things, and have decidedly strong opinions on topics?”

“Yes?”

“There you go.”

“I... what?”

Alexien sighed. “The scion of a noble house shouldn’t do any of those things. Our pride and our best ornament is our nobility itself, our family’s legacy. Implying that you value anything else _above_ that legacy is common and vulgar. Who values their own little hobbies above their inherited glory? Low-born peasants without any inherited glory, that’s who. And actually putting _effort_ into some kind of occupation is even worse. Work is for plebeians. Having to work at something implies you’re not inherently better than everyone else.”

“Okay,” said Serana slowly. “The opinions, though?”

“Well, if you’re a noble and you have an opinion about things, you might offend some other noble at a party. That’s not the point of having a conversation. The point of having a conversation is to say nothing at all, and say it brilliantly, in as many amusing words and with as clever a turn of phrase as possible. You have to get along with all the other nobles your family is obligated to socialize with, and be equally delightful to all of them.”

“Okay,” said Serana again. “I follow. Not that dissimilar from my upbringing, actually.” Alexien gave her a quizzical look, and she explained: “I was lonely because there was no one around. You were lonely because there was always someone around. But the result was the same.”

“Well put. You would have shone.”

“Pass.”

He smiled. “So... I was never good at any of that. I mean, if I had taken up hunting or drinking or drunken hunting, some other respectable amusement like that, that would have been one thing. Instead I chose magic, and I was always most unsocially sequestered in the library. And my parents despaired.” He shook his head. “Again, they were very kind. I’m sure they wanted what they thought was best for me. But they didn’t make it easy.”

“Hold on. Doesn’t magic travel in bloodlines?”

“Often, yes. My mother has some talent.”

“And she still pushed you like that?”

“She... had apparently been quite the eccentric rebel herself. When younger.”

“Ah,” said Serana. “But then she calmed down and conformed, and you were afraid the same thing would happen to you.”

Alexien raised his cup to her, and took a drink. “But for all that, they managed to arrange a good marriage. A surprisingly good one, actually, considering my reputation; the girl’s parents were a couple of rungs above us on the social ladder. I think she was the youngest of several sisters and also the black sheep of _her_ family.”

“And you had never met her before?”

“She wrote me a letter, when her parents told her she was engaged to me. Which was almost scandalous. But she was... sweet, actually. Understanding.”

“How dreadful.”

Alexien shook his head. “I told you, my parents deserved a better son than they got. And this girl deserved a better husband than I would have been.”

Serana had nothing to say to that.

“So that made my decision for me. I wrote my parents a letter, laid it prominently on my desk, and packed up and left in the middle of the night.”

“Hang on,” she interrupted, “you just up and left without telling them goodbye?”

“I’ve... written to them a few times,” said Alexien defensively. “They know I’m safe and happy at Winterhold. They send me letters there sometimes.”

“Letters.”

“Deserved a better son than they got, remember?”

Serana shook her head, and didn’t respond. She looked down at her wine, and took a slow drink, deep in thought. Alexien was evidently finished with his story and sat watching her silently, with no intention of saying anything more.

“That’s bullshit,” said Serana.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry, let me rephrase that: You. Are. _So_ full of shit.”

“Thank you?”

“No, seriously.” She leaned forwards. “Don’t pretend like you’re some tragic anti-hero, carrying your guilt like the weight of the world. You did something stupid when you were young, and as stupid young mistakes go, it wasn’t very. And now you spend your time wandering the land, righting wrongs and slaying monsters, and literally _trying to save the world_ , just because it’s the right thing to do.”

“It sounds a lot better when you say it like that.”

“What, accurately?”

He shook his head, but he was smiling. “Maybe you’re a little right.”

“I know I’m entirely right. Because... well, you’ve been... a good friend to me. My best and only friend, actually.” She stopped a moment. “And because you could have killed me, and instead you saved my life. Because _I_ could have killed _you_ , and instead you made me want to save _your_ life.” She hesitated, then added, more quietly: “You make me better.”

“You don’t need my help for that.”

“I will never, never, _never_ say this again, so listen carefully: _Yes, I do_.”

Alexien looked like he wanted to protest, but said nothing. After a while he muttered: “Then it’s a good thing for both of us that we’re doing this together.”

“You’re just realizing that?” She smiled. “Gods you’re dense sometimes.”

“Finally something we can agree on,” he smiled back.

“And here’s something else we’ll be agreeing on,” said Serana, and she snatched the cup out of Alexien’s hand. “I’m controlling your wine consumption from now on, because if you have any more tonight you won’t be able to walk in the morning.”

“Excuse me,” he said, mock-offended, “I am a Breton and a noble. We take wine from the cradle. It will take more than a bottle of wine or four to lay me on my back.”

“What I meant was, if you have any more tonight you’ll be unbearably _whiny_ in the morning.”

“Oh, well we’re already way past that point.”

Serana sighed heavily and mouthed _Why me?_ Alexien laughed, and she pretended to be annoyed for just a second longer, then laughed with him. Shortly thereafter they blew out the lights and tried to sleep.

* * *

They were walking the road south of Dragon Bridge, both of them tense with frustration and impatience.

They had pushed on and arrived in the town faster than planned, and expected to be rewarded by meeting the Moth Priest there. But of course they had no such luck. The priest had indeed been there earlier that very day, but he had left town in some haste. None of the townspeople could tell them where he was going or why, only that he had been seen departing on the southern road.

So now Alexien and Serana were marching on that road, trying to catch up with the Moth Priest and his retinue. They knew at least that he was traveling in a wagon with several guards. Alexien was nervous nonetheless, and kept eyeing the surrounding hilltops with suspicion. When Serana asked, he had only said “Forsworn” and returned to his watch.

Finally, when the sun was almost directly overhead, they saw a wagon stopped in the distance ahead. They cried out and started to run to catch it, but after just a few seconds Serana suddenly put an arm out and stopped Alexien.

“I smell blood,” she said. “A lot of it.”

Alexien cursed and drew his sword, and they advanced more cautiously.

Soon enough he caught it too, the smell of blood and burnt flesh. He could see the bodies scattered around the wagon. He raised a hand, paused, apologized to Serana; then she felt that now-familiar sense of exposure as a wave of magic passed over her.

“No undead,” Alexien said. “Maybe bandits – Forsworn?”

Serana sniffed the air. “No such luck.”

“Great,” he muttered, advancing on the wagon. “Just great.”

He found six dead guards, all clad like imperial legionaries. A couple had been pierced with arrows, a few had sword wounds; but at least one had simply had his flesh ripped away, his throat and upper chest torn open, by something inhumanly strong.

“Vampires?” Alexien asked Serana.

“Thralls, too.”

“Can you tell how many?”

She shrugged. “Nothing’s been stolen, though” she pointed out.

“Except for our Moth Priest.”

“Are you sure?”

“These were all professional soldiers. And a Moth Priest would be wearing the grey robes of their order. Unless they were traveling in secret for some reason, but this one wasn’t.”

Serana looked around, pacing in a wide circle around the wagon. Alexien noticed her giving the dead soldiers an odd look. Finally she turned towards the northwest, sniffed the air again. “Someone was dragged this way.”

“Alive?”

“Bleeding, so yes, still alive at the time.”

“Can you track them?”

“Can I,” asked Serana, rolling her eyes, “a vampire with supernaturally accurate predator-senses, track a wounded and bleeding prey animal over open ground?”

“Ah. Right.” Alexien paused. “After you, then.”

Serana didn’t respond, but immediately set off at a brisk pace. Alexien ran behind her. He occasionally saw a bent plant or a faint splatter of dark wetness that _might_ have been blood, but would quickly have become lost. Serana, however, ran as straight and sure as an arrow, and only picked up speed the further they went. “Close,” she said once.

She led the way into a valley flanked by low cliffs, and traced her way unerringly through a maze of fallen rocks, until they came to a narrow cave opening in the face of one of the cliffs. She looked around once as Alexien caught up. “This is it,” she said, pointing towards the cave.

Alexien stared inside. It was pitch-black, an empty, almost malevolent darkness. “They came this way recently, you said?”

“Less than an hour, if I had to guess.” She sniffed tentatively. “The Moth Priest was still alive. Two, maybe three vampires, more thralls.” She glanced back at Alexien. “Ready for a fight?”

He nodded, but seemed to hesitate a moment. Serana turned back to face him.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“Everything's peachy,” he said. “I'm just not overly excited to go into the dark death-cave of darkness where we know there are vampires waiting to ambush us and feast on my blood. I need my blood.”

“Baby.”

“Sorry, some of us don't have creature-of-the-night eyes to see in pitch blackness. And if I cast a light they'll know exactly where we are.”

Serana sighed. “Yeah, good point.” She thought for a moment, nodded to herself, and walked over and put her palm on Alexien's forehead. It was pleasantly cool under the noonday sun. “Hold still a moment.”

“Serana?”

“Shush. This is harder than it looks.”

And suddenly the sunlight was too bright, and burned his eyes; reflexively he brought his arms up to cover his face, but that all-overwhelming light still came through, and even though he squished his eyes closed they still stung.

“Yeah, it's a little unpleasant at first, but you get used to it,” he heard Serana saying.

“What did you just do?”

“Don't worry, it's temporary, it'll wear off in an hour or so. But until then your eyes are like mine. Darkness won't be a problem.”

That... was actually pretty impressive. And more than a little scary. And also horribly unpleasant.

“Is daylight always like this for you?” he asked, feeling guilty.

“Sometimes. There's a reason I always wear my hood. But mostly you learn to get used to it.”

Alexien resolved to insist they sometimes travel by night in the future. He lowered his arms and tried to open his eyes a fraction. Serana cocked her head to one side, as if admiring her work. “The color suits you,” she said. “Amber. Brown was a little too plain on you.”

“Thanks?”

“If you like it, I can always make it permanent,” she said, grinning.

“I'll pass. If I had your eyes people might think we were related, and I don't think I could live with the embarrassment.”

“That's all right then: you wouldn't _be_ living.”

He opened his eyes a bit more. They were slowly getting used to the light; but the cave, far from creepy, was now starting to look awfully inviting.

“Let's get inside,” he said, mimicking Serana's voice; “or anywhere, just out of this.”

She smirked, motioned for him to follow, and led the way inside.

There was a long, narrow stone passageway, but with his new eyes Alexien could see it open into a wider chamber some distance away. They crept along carefully, Serana occasionally stopping to smell the air. Once she whispered to Alexien: “Listen. I know you’ve fought vampires and thralls before, but if these are my father’s minions, they won’t be like Alva. Be careful. And don’t hesitate to put the thralls down, because they won’t hesitate either.”

“Can we save them?”

Serana looked torn. “If they’ve been gone for more than a few days... probably not. There’s likely not much of _them_ left in them.”

“But if we kill the vampires controlling them...”

Serana shook her head. “These vampires probably aren’t the ones that enthralled them. Captives are usually... broken back at the castle, then sent out under the command of others. For this _exact_ reason, so someone like you couldn’t just get a lucky shot in, take down one vampire, and lose us a dozen thralls.”

“Smart,” mumbled Alexien, but he looked sick.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” said Serana, “but probably not. You just need to accept that we’re not walking out of this cave with clean hands.” She glanced back at him. “And there will be more days like this, you know.”

“I know.”

“You need to be okay killing other humans, if it’s necessary.”

“I’m already too okay with it; that’s the problem.”

Serana’s look turned to surprise, then sympathy. But she shook her head and motioned again for him to follow her.

They reached the end of the tunnel and crouched at the entrance to the larger cavern. There was – a castle. Someone had built an entire fortified castle underground, deep in the cave’s utter blackness.

“Well that’s not ominous or anything,” muttered Alexien.

“My father must have had this built,” said Serana, frowning. “I wonder how many other strongholds he has hidden around Skyrim.”

“He’s about to have one fewer.”

Serana nodded, looking around. The cavern was _not_ utterly dark: there were three small pinpricks of light, moving slowly over the battlements. “Thralls with torches,” she said. “Probably more inside.”

“I can hit them from here, before they know they’re under attack.”

“And you’d alert everyone else inside. I’ll take them down quietly.” She glanced over at him. “No offense, but you have my eyes, not my feet.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m rubbish at stealth; thank you for reminding me.”

“My way of saying it was more polite. But yes. Wait here while I go ahead, then move up when you see the three lights go out, and we’ll meet inside.”

Without waiting for him to reply, Serana crept forwards. Alexien watched her approach the ramparts at the furthest point from the torches, then scramble up and over the wall with surprising grace. One by one the lights stopped, wavered, and went out. There was never a single sound he could hear.

He met Serana just inside the main gateway, and they gave each other a silent nod and proceeded deeper into the fortress.

As soon as he passed through the gates, Alexien could feel a steady thrum of magic, coming from the high keep across the courtyard. He pointed it out to Serana, and she nodded.

And, of course, everything went wrong at once.

A tall, pale figure in blackened armor stepped out onto the stairs coming down from the keep, accompanied by a massive stone gargoyle. On the other side of the courtyard, flanking Alexien and Serana, two more vampires emerged, and the cavern echoed with their cruel laughter. More thralls appeared, heavily armored, weapons at the ready.

“Damn it,” Serana cursed. “Bait. Those three were bait.”

“They died, as all mortals,” said the tall vampire in a coldly amused voice. “And their deaths served us most conveniently. It’s been too long, Lady Serana.” And he gave her a bow.

“Malkus,” said Serana. She did not bow. “Didn’t I tell you I’d kill you if I ever saw you again?”

“Now now, you know how your father feels about airing our disagreements in front of the food.” The other vampires laughed again, and he turned to Alexien. “And you. Lord Harkon thought you might crawl out of your hole and show yourself again. Do you even know what you’ve stumbled onto here?”

Alexien shrugged. “Yet another blood-sucking poser who can’t stop talking about how great and oh-so-mysterious he is?”

Malkus gave an exaggerated laugh. The thralls moved restively; Alexien counted eight of them. “Excellent, excellent! I do so enjoy the chatty morsels. It’s always such a delight to watch your type plead and weep and beg for a faster death.”

“You won’t have time to beg.”

“You will. Lord Harkon ordered us to take you alive, if you ever dared interfere. I assure you, you will have a long, _long_ time to regret your choices.”

“Can we move this along? This is all very scary and so on, and I’m sure there’s someone somewhere in the world that would find you intimidating, but you won’t even be the most melodramatic thing I’ve killed this _week_.”

“Just _precious_. I see now why she’s keeping you as a pet; you must be a most entertaining meal. No” – Malkus looked Alexien over with a sneer, mock-surprise on his face – “you _actually_ think you mean something, don’t you? That you’re more than just a favored lamb, petted and coddled and doted on, right up until the moment you’re slaughtered for meat?”

“If you two are done,” Serana broke in angrily, “I have some murder that I promised to commit, and I’d like to get on with it.”

Malkus snarled “Kill them!” then turned his back and disappeared up the steps into the keep. The two other vampires stepped forwards and pointed at Alexien and Serana. The remaining thralls charged.

Alexien had already been planning for that: he struck down a pair of archers with lightning right as they were drawing back their bowstrings. Serana was closer to the other six, but he felt sure she could handle herself; but nonetheless he cast a barrier over both of them, in case the gargoyle or the remaining two vampires attacked.

Meanwhile, the six thralls reached Serana –

And she killed them.

All of them.

With fire, ice, and lightning, with her bare hands, she burned, shattered, blasted, and broke them, and they never touched her. Alexien saw her face, barely human with rage, eyes blazing, and for the first time in a long while was frightened of her.

One of the two remaining vampires pointed at Serana, and the gargoyle charged her. She leapt back out of its reach, hit it with an ice spell that barely fazed it, dodged again.

But Alexien had to turn his attention to the two vampires, who were now approaching him, starting to circle around. So: they thought that he was the weaker of the two of them, and the gargoyle was just there to keep Serana occupied so they could gang up and finish him as quickly as possible; then they could all turn to Serana.

 _Okay_ , he thought, _two vampires at once_. He’d faced worse odds before. Not much, though. But he could do this. He just had to open up with everything he had and knock one out of the battle right off the bat, before they could (possibly literally) tear his arms off and beat him to death with them.

But one of the vampires, a Bosmer to his left, was talking: “There’s no outcome where you leave this place alive, mortal. Just give up, and we might make it quick for you.”

“Really? Are we actually doing this?” asked Alexien. He shifted his grip on his sword and gathered sunfire in his left hand. “I thought we already finished the ‘banter’ stage of this fight with Malkus.”

The Bosmer shrugged, and only stared at him in a way it clearly hoped was intimidating. Alexien stared back and met its eyes –

And suddenly couldn’t remember what he was doing there.

There was _something_ he was supposed to be doing. Something important. But, however much he racked his brain, he just couldn’t think what it was.

There was a shortish figure approaching him, maybe a Wood Elf? He looked friendly. Maybe Alexien should ask him for help; he might remember what was so important.

Someone was shouting his name. Perhaps he should pay attention to that? But it just didn’t seem to matter. Something about that voice, though... he knew that woman’s voice. From where? It was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t place it.

The elf got closer, and something about those burning amber eyes was familiar – but these were different. Not soft or kind.

Something about that discrepancy, that contrast, was great enough that it clicked in Alexien’s brain, and some part of him recognized the tingle of magic against his skull. He knew that feeling – he had practiced with it for more than half of his life, had cast it, had felt it flowing out from him, had felt other apprentices practicing it on him – Illusion magic. A spell of calmness. He still couldn’t tell _why_ it was so important that he know that, but it didn’t matter; on the level of pure instinct, his training took over. He formed the image of a wall in his mind, and invested it with power. From behind that wall he focused on his breathing. His breathing was real.

Then everything seemed to snap into focus, and he recognized the snarling fangs of a vampire leaping at him, claws reaching out for his throat.

He braced himself, stretched his sword out in front of him and grasped the hilt with both hands, and the vampire impaled itself on the blade.

Alexien blinked. _Well, that_ _was easy_ , he thought. Then: _Wait, wasn’t there another –_

Something that felt like a charging mammoth slammed into his back, right between his shoulder blades, and he was tumbling over the ground, coming to a stop flat on his face. He tasted blood. He started to get up and realized his sword was missing. Then suddenly a clawed hand shot out, grabbed him by the arm, and _threw_ him one-handed into a stone wall.

The vampire was advancing on him, grinning. Alexien through sunfire at it. It waited until the last possible second, then contemptuously stepped aside – gods it was fast – and laughed. All of a sudden it charged, leapt over a bolt of lightning, and struck Alexien full in the chest.

The barrier he had cast earlier protected him from the flesh-shredding claws, at least, but the impact still threw him back into the wall. His back hurt. For that matter, his chest hurt too. His head hurt. Everything hurt.

The vampire snarled in his face; Alexien raised a shield and pushed it forwards, and an invisible but irresistible wall of force drove the vampire backwards. He threw another bolt of sunfire at it, but it side-stepped again, laughed again. It started to walk back towards him.

Alexien conjured a spell in either hand and cast both at once; one sent another jet of fire at the vampire, which it dodged easily.

“Out of tricks already?” it sneered. It reached down to the ground and picked up Alexien’s sword. “You got lucky with Reylin, but then he was always a fool. And now you don’t have any more surprises.”

“I wouldn’t be so confident of that, if I were you.”

It laughed. “If you had anything left, you would do it, and not be trying to delay your death by talking for time. You’re finished.”

“Are we _still_ doing this?” Alexien asked in mock-wonder. “By all the secrets in Apocrypha, does every last one of you neck-suckers monologue during a fight? Is undeath really so boring?”

It shrugged. “If you'd rather I killed you quickly –” and it charged.

He channeled frost with both hands and sent it streaming at the vampire. It slowed, and Alexien poured ever more magic into the spell. Ice started to form on the ground around them.

The vampire laughed again, biting and cruel and scornful. “You know that a little chilly air won't hurt me, surely?”

“Oh, sure,” said Alexien. He was gritting his teeth with the effort of holding the spell. The _other_ spell. “But it'll slow you down more than fire and is just as distracting.”

It blinked; then its eyes widened suddenly and it spun around – too late; the first vampire, its body reanimated by Alexien’s spell, buried its claws into the other’s neck and started tearing.

For good measure, Alexien set it on fire.

He fell to his knees and released his concentration from the necromancy, and the vampire fell dead – unalive – whatever – again. That had taken a lot more out of him than he expected, and his eyes swam with fatigue; he really needed Serana to give him some tips on –

_Serana._

He stood up, forced his eyes to focus and looked over where Serana was fighting the gargoyle. _Had been_ fighting: it was in pieces on the floor, and she was coming in his direction with a spell in each hand. When she saw him she let out a breath in relief and released the magic.

“Oh, good, you didn't die,” she said. “I thought I was going to have to find another walking meal to follow me around.”

“Still here,” he answered. “You know, I took it as a compliment when you told me I was cleverer than your father's minions, but by all the planes of Oblivion, it's not very high praise, is it?”

“What can I say, you soared above a very low bar,” she smiled.

“At least if I die you can find a mudcrab to impress you. It'd still have more brains than these two.”

Serana was silent, and examined the two dead vampires.

“Sorry,” Alexien said quickly, “I shouldn't... did you know them?”

“A bit. Reylin and Morath. They were vicious shits and I'm not sorry they're dead.”

But he knew she was lying.

She changed the subject. “I thought you told me that Conjuration wasn’t really your subject?”

“It’s not.” His legs still felt a little shaky. “I’ve studied the theory, of course, but that’s about it.”

“No wonder you're worn out, then.” She eyed him with concern. “Are you good to continue? Or should I just go ahead and put you out of your misery? I'm kind of hungry now.”

He raised his left hand, and it was wreathed in sunfire. He looked at it pointedly.

“All right, all right,” she sighed dramatically, “I guess it'll have to wait. Just thought I'd ask.”

“You're too kind. Shall we?”

Serana nodded, face serious again. “I have unfinished business with Malkus.”

“What did he do to piss you off so much? Just so I can be sure to never, ever do that.”

Serana didn’t answer, but was already walking back towards the stairs to the keep. They got to the entrance and stopped.

“Huh,” said Alexien.

“He warded the door,” said Serana.

And indeed, an invisible wall prevented Alexien from moving inside. He had just started to examine the spell when Serana laughed.

“It’s a common ward we use,” she explained. “It’s only designed to keep _mortals_ out.”

“Then you –”

Serana waved a hand lazily, and Alexien felt the magic disintegrate.

“Huh,” he said again. “This might actually be easy for once.”

Serana said nothing. She pushed through the door and immediately charged up the stairs leading to the top of the tower.

They emerged onto the roof, a wide round area. Malkus stood off to the side, arms forward, concentrating on a grey-robed figure unconscious in the middle of a chalk circle. His eyes glanced towards Serana as she came into view, but he did not move.

Serana froze. She tentatively took a few steps forward, but only looked more confused when Malkus seemed to ignore her. “What’s he doing?” she asked Alexien.

Alexien walked once around the chalk circle. “A ritual,” he said. “My _guess_ is that he knew he couldn’t make it past us with the Moth Priest, so he gave up on enthralling him and is just trying to rip the knowledge out of his mind.”

“We don’t need rituals to do that.”

“You might if it’s a Moth Priest, and you’re trying to extract something about the Elder Scrolls.”

Serana walked a circle around Malkus. “So why isn’t he reacting?”

“Because he’s done a really sloppy job of it.” Alexien smudged the circle with the toe of his boot, and the other vampire’s eyes widened. “If he lets go of the spell before the ritual is complete, the energy will backfire and probably kill him. Or at least destroy his psyche. I thought vampires were supposed to be good at this?”

“Dear Malkus here has always been a bit of an idiot.”

“Not for much longer, I bet.”

Serana stopped beside the other vampire. “What’s to stop us from just killing him, then?”

“Oh, exactly nothing,” said Alexien. Malkus’ eyes flashed back and forth between them. “I mean, he can hear everything we’re saying and is probably terrified out of his mind right now, so you might find that f–”

Serana snapped his neck.

“– fun. Wow.”

“Yeah. Kind of a let-down, actually.” Serana frowned down at the corpse. She flicked a hand, and flames erupted around it. “That’s better.”

Alexien was silent a moment. “Serana?”

She didn’t answer him.

He turned and went over to kneel beside the Moth Priest. The sleep spell on him was falling apart. Alexien shook his shoulder gently. “Dexion, I presume?”

The man groaned, but did not move.

“Dexion,” Alexien said again, more forcefully. “Wake up. You’re safe.”

The priest’s eyes fluttered open, then he gave a start and sat up. “Who – how do you know my name?”

“I’m from the College, they told me I could find you at Dragon Bridge.” He was aware of Serana moving up to stand behind him. “My name is Alexien. This is Serana.”

“Dexion Evicus. I...” he glanced over and saw the body of Malkus, still on fire. “Thank you, I think.”

“No thanks are required. Do you need anything? Are you hurt? I know some Restoration.”

“No, no, thank you. I’m all right.” He frowned. “The guards I was traveling with?”

“All dead, I’m afraid.”

Dexion shuddered. After a moment he stood up and looked around.

“Dexion,” Alexien said. “What in Mundus is a Moth Priest doing in the Reach?”

“They... they told me in Dragon Bridge that there was an Elder Scroll near here. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? It was a ploy by these – these monsters – to lure me away. But I don’t understand _why_.”

“I do,” said Serana. “They were looking for you for the same reason we’ve been.”

Dexion paled slightly. “Which is?”

“We need you to read an Elder Scroll.”

“An... an actual Elder Scroll? You truly have one?”

Serana unslung the Scroll from her back and glanced at Alexien; he nodded, and she handed the Scroll to the priest.

“You do!” he cried joyfully. He almost hugged the Scroll. “Oh, I was starting to think this whole journey to Skyrim would be a waste. But here you are!”

“Can you read it?” asked Alexien.

“Of course, of course,” said Dexion. Then he frowned. “But what interest do you have in the Elder Scrolls?”

Alexien gestured back to the dead vampire. “They want to do something catastrophically bad with the prophecy in this one. We would very much like to stop them.”

“Them? There are more like this one?”

“Many more, and worse.”

Dexion shuddered again. “I... yes, then. Of course I will help you.”

“Thank you,” Alexien said, bowing. He looked at Dexion expectantly.

Dexion ran his hands over the Scroll’s case. “I could read it now,” he said, excited, nervous. “It’s why I’m in Skyrim. But...” he looked around the cavern. “Is it... are you sure it’s quite safe here?”

“Perfectly,” said Alexien. “We were quite thorough. Everything in this cave is very, very dead.”

“Except for just the three of us?”

“Well, the two of us, technically.”

Dexion glanced nervously at Serana. Serana glanced in frustration at Alexien.

“Serana is on our side,” Alexien said firmly.

“How – forgive me, but how can you be sure?”

Alexien gestured back at the vampire’s corpse again. It was still smouldering.

“Ah. Yes. That does look... all right.” He took a deep breath, and laid both hands on the Scroll’s case. “You two should stand back.”

“Do you need light?”

Dexion chuckled and shooed him away. They backed up and averted their eyes. His hands moved over the Elder Scroll, almost caressingly; and then he opened it.

All his life, Alexien always remembered, with haunting clarity, what they saw then, what they heard. There was a surge of power like nothing he had ever felt before or ever would again. Rays of light streamed from the scroll, purple and white and red and all the colors of Aetherius; but they illuminated only the face of Dexion, and all else was darkness. Then the Moth Priest spoke, in a voice at once quiet and booming, low as the depths and high as the firmament of heaven, that spoke inside him and all around him – _Like the voice of a god_ , Alexien described it in later years.

He felt Serana shiver beside him, move closer, at the sound of that voice.

> _Among the night's children,_
> 
> _a dread lord will rise._
> 
> _In an age of strife, when dragons return_
> 
> _and the thrones of men are shaken,_
> 
> _darkness will mingle with light;_
> 
> _night and day will be as one._
> 
> _Among the night's children,_
> 
> _a dread lord will rise:_
> 
> _the first since the beginning,_
> 
> _the last before the end._
> 
> _I hear the twang of a bow,_
> 
> _I see the gleam of the sun._
> 
> _In a forgotten vale they will find it,_
> 
> _on a forgotten island wield it._
> 
> _Night shall turn against night,_
> 
> _day shall turn against day;_
> 
> _night will burn with sun’s brightness,_
> 
> _and day will dim forever._
> 
> _Webs are woven, schemes are laid;_
> 
> _The schemer laughs – but lo!_
> 
> _The devourer comes,_
> 
> _soul-eater, time’s eldest,_
> 
> _the blood of ancient blood._
> 
> _Hope shall be born,_
> 
> _and hope shall fail,_
> 
> _at the end of the end._

Silence fell, deep and piercing. Dexion closed the Scroll.

“Barking, raving mad,” muttered Alexien.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Quoting a friend of mine.”

Dexion nodded slowly. “I am... weary from the reading. But if you have questions, you may ask them.”

“Did you... understand that?” asked Serana.

“Some.” The priest smiled. “I spoke with Urag as well. He is correct: the prophecies contained in the Elder Scrolls always come true, but rarely in the way one expects. But those of my order usually go less astray than others.”

“Our enemy,” Alexien said, “believes that the Scroll foretells the eternal reign of the vampire. That he will conquer the sun, become some kind of dark god, and rule all Nirn forever.”

Dexion chuckled. “That is possibly one of its meanings, yes.”

“One of?”

“The Elder Scrolls never speak only one prophecy at once. The future is not single. All is intertwined, and blends into all else. One thread is never the entire tapestry.”

Alexien groaned in frustration.

“I can, however, certainly tell you this,” said Dexion. “There are two more Scrolls that relate to this prophecy, that you must find if you wish to understand this fragment of the whole.”

“How... did you determine that?”

“I am more attuned to the Scrolls than you. I heard more than just the bare words. Yes, I am quite sure that there are two more Elder Scrolls. I feel their interweaving with this one, the vibrations of their passing through Skyrim.”

“They’re in Skyrim?” Serana asked.

“Insofar as they can be said to be ‘in’ any location. Say rather than certain locations are ‘in’ the Scrolls at certain times.”

Serana sighed. Alexien asked: “What can you tell us about these other two?”

“One of them explains the reference to _a bow_ and _the sun_. It may be – yes, I believe it is the Bow of Auriel, carried into battle by the god himself when the Aedra overthrew the power of Lorkhan. It plays a central role, and whoever wields it will be able to reshape the prophecy.”

“Reshape the prophecy?”

“The Elder Scrolls are multivalent, as I said. The future is not single. Nor is the present nor the past, for that matter. But one wielding Auriel’s Bow will perhaps be able to fix his own view of the future as reality.”

“Keep Auriel’s Bow from the vampire lord seeking the end of the world, check. And the other Scroll?”

“I... am not sure,” Dexion admitted. “I feel that it relates to the phrase _blood of ancient blood_. But the final stanza is strange. The paths diverge there, and recombine. It has the power to reinterpret all that came before. But I sense that you, Alexien, will know far more about this than I, before all is done.”

“Splendid,” Alexien answered. “Well, Dexion, you’ve given us a whole host of horrible news, but nonetheless I am grateful for all your help. We are in your debt.”

Dexion shook his head. “This is our task. This is why I came to Skyrim – perhaps why I was born into the world. Bring me the other two Elder Scrolls, when you find them, and I will read them for you as well.”

“Deal.”

Dexion hesitated. “I wonder... I am a stranger in Skyrim, and don’t know where...”

“Go to the College,” said Alexien. “Tell them that Alexien – no, that Alexien and Serana – sent you, and that there may be vampires after you, and that they must keep you safe _at all costs_. Use those very words.”

“I... yes. I look forward to seeing you again at Winterhold. Thank you, both of you.”

As they walked out of the cave, Alexien asked Serana: “Did you understand any of that?”

“The phrase ‘a dark lord will rise’ seems pretty obvious. My father, at least, will assume it refers to him. And ‘the first since the beginning, the last before the end’ – he’ll just think that means he’s so great that there never was anyone else like him and never will be again.”

“‘When dragons return,’ though?” asked Alexien. He stopped to place a ward on the cave’s entrance, a nasty surprise for the next vampire to come that way.

Serana shrugged. “Those imperial soldiers were wearing dragon insignia.”

“The heraldry of the Septim Dynasty? That makes as much sense as anything, I guess.”

They fell silent, both deep in thought. Alexien was trying to piece together what it meant that night should turn against night, and day against day. But Serana was most troubled by the reference to the Schemer.


	10. A Teachable Moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, two updates in two days! But this is just a mini-chapter, while I think about the pacing of the next major events coming up.

They accompanied Dexion as far as Dragon Bridge. There Serana spent some of her gold to hire a carriage and a guard to take him to Winterhold with all possible speed, and they bade him farewell.

Then they had to plan their next move.

That was proving difficult, because ever since encountering Malkus, Serana had grown distant.

She didn’t snap about anything, wasn’t actively unfriendly, just... quiet. Stand-offish. Alexien gave her space, and tried not to worry. Doubtless she had plenty on her mind that she needed to work through on her own. She was probably feeling conflicted that they had just killed three other vampires whom she had known for many times longer than _he_ had been alive. But still, the last time she had turned distant... He pushed that thought away.

That first night they had camped some distance outside the town. They didn’t discuss it, but Alexien assumed Serana wouldn’t want to be around people. She had seemed grateful for that. Still, they didn’t talk much. She sat against a tree while Alexien read by the light of the campfire. He was still practicing his magic nightly, but she didn’t even seem inclined to tease him for it. Finally he had gone to bed; but Serana, as far as he knew, never slept that night.

The second day Serana was a little more open, but by no means her usual self. They talked enough to decide that they should stay where they were for one more night, to rest after their race to find Dexion. Serana borrowed a book from Alexien, and most of the day they spent sitting against the same tree, reading – though Alexien noticed she was careful not to sit too close to him.

She probably still needed space, he told himself. But that night he ignored his own advice.

“Serana?” he started. “You don’t have to, of course, but if there’s something on your mind you want to talk about...”

She shook her head, but didn’t look at him. “Thanks. Really. But that’s the exact opposite of what I want right now.”

Maybe Alexien would have backed off before, at that. But he thought he could tell when Serana _really_ didn’t want to talk about something, instead of just being nervous to talk about it; so he decided to press just a little bit more. “If that’s what you want,” he said, in a tone that suggested he didn’t believe that was what she wanted. “But you know I’m right here, whenever.” A silent pause. “Malkus?” he guessed.

She nodded, still looking away.

“What he was saying – did he get to you?” He meant: _When he taunted me for imagining that you actually care anything for me_.

“No, nothing like that. Just...” she trailed off. “Bad memories,” she said after a while.

“It might help to talk about it,” Alexien said hesitantly. “I know I probably won’t understand most of it, but I’ll try.”

“That’s the problem,” said Serana in a harsh voice, finally turning and looking at him. “You’re so –” she cut herself off and turned away again. After a moment, she spoke again, barely audible over the crackling fire: “If I tell you, you won’t trust me anymore.”

“What if I promise I will?”

“You can’t promise that.”

“Let me worry about –”

Her gaze flashed in his direction, her eyes met his. It was time to back off.

Alexien raised his hands, a gesture of surrender, and sat back against the tree with his book. They sat a while in silence. Alexien read the same page several times without understanding any of it, sighed, and finally closed the book.

“Well, this is going to be awkward then,” he said, “because I was planning to ask you for a favor.”

He could feel Serana watching him, but she said nothing.

He took a deep breath. “When we were fighting those vampires – one of them, you remember, hit me with a mental attack. Illusion. I don’t get the impression he was particularly powerful, for a vampire, but I was still wildly unprepared to face that.”

“Yes?”

“So... that probably won’t be the last time we face some of Harkon’s lackeys. I’m almost certainly going to have one of them try to invade my mind again, sooner or later.”

Serana got what he was asking. “Bad idea,” she muttered.

“Serana, I can’t freeze like that in a fight again. I need to be able to resist that kind of mental influence. And you can teach me how to do it.”

“I can, yes. But you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I do.”

She shook her head. “It’s not like I can just give you a few pointers and send you on your way. To train you how to protect yourself if a vampire invades your mind, I would have to _actually_ invade your mind.”

“I know.”

“Alexien,” she said in frustration, “you’re not listening. If I got inside your head, I could do really, really, horrifically bad things.”

“You won’t, though.”

“What makes you so sure?”

He didn’t answer.

Serana was silent a long while, and then sighed. “All right, fine, we’ll give this a shot.” She got up and moved closer to the fire, and sat cross-legged on the ground. She motioned for Alexien to join her.

“All right,” she said again. “I still think this is a terrible idea, by the way.”

“And I still think you’re wrong,” said Alexien.

Her mouth twitched. “Well, maybe I can _convince_ you otherwise before we’re done.” She extended her hands, palms up, and Alexien laid his own on top of hers. “Look at my eyes.”

He did. They were their usual burnt amber, bright in the evening darkness. But somehow they looked even less human than normal. Alexien felt a chill he hoped was the wind.

“Vampires... we’re gifted at influencing others,” Serana was saying, her voice barely a whisper. “As you know. I can show you that. Help you understand the mind as we do. I can force a bit of my own awareness into yours. You’ll ‘see’ me – for lack of a better term – and I’ll see you.”

Alexien nodded, suddenly nervous. The eye contact was becoming intensely uncomfortable, but he forced himself not to look away.

“For this to work,” said Serana, gaze unwavering, “you have to trust me. You have to let me in. Are you sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“No, you’re not,” she said. Her voice was soft, and had taken on an almost musical cadence. “I can feel your hesitation. And that’s not unreasonable. But lying to me right now can be very dangerous. Everything about this is dangerous. I won’t lie: This is one of the ways we can make thralls. I have already told you that I think this is a bad idea. Opening up your mind to me, letting me in – letting a vampire in – unless you trust me, completely, it’s insane. So I ask you again: Are you sure about this?”

He took a deep breath. Then another. This was just Serana. Not a vampire. Not a monster. Just Serana. A friend. Whatever else she was didn't matter.

“Yes, I'm sure.”

She waited a moment. “All right,” she said slowly. “If this becomes too much... don't resist, don't pull away, or you might hurt yourself. Just say something and I'll stop. Okay?”

He nodded.

“Say you understand.”

“I understand.”

Serana’s gaze became only more intense, and he thought for a moment that she was going to say something else. But there was only the sound of the fire, the feeling of her hands on his. Her eyes were the only sources of illumination in the blackness of night.

Then, suddenly, he felt her.

He didn’t know how else to describe it. There was a pressure on his temples, and it felt like the sight of her face and the sound her her voice. Reflexively he wanted to close his eyes and pull away. But he resisted himself and leaned towards that pressure. Somehow it was a question. _Yes_ , he told it.

Then it was gone, and there was a sensation of flowing water. He knew her eyes were still locked on his, but he couldn’t see them. Can fish see the water, can birds see the air? He was aware of another presence in his thoughts, and it reminded him of the sea, of an infinite tide washing around and over everything in its path; but at the same time it only went where he allowed it to go. It was insistent, but yielding; it pushed, but always stopped just short of _too hard_. It could have ripped away all that he had, all that he was, and he would have let it; but it was content just to be, and did nothing.

Suddenly he was back at the campsite. The fire crackled in his ears, and he could see Serana’s face. She blinked.

“You...” she was saying, then stopped. She pulled her hands away.

Alexien’s heart raced, and he allowed himself to feel the panic he had been ignoring.

They stayed like that a while. Finally Alexien asked: “Are you all right?”

Serana laughed nervously. “I should be asking you that.”

“In a minute. I asked first.”

She shook her head. “I think it’s just been a while since I’ve done that. Not that I ever – but you felt different, somehow. I was just surprised.”

“Is that why you stopped so quickly?”

“Alexien, it’s been more than an hour.”

He said nothing.

“Are _you_ all right?” she asked after a few minutes.

“Yes,” he answered at once. “It just wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought... it would be like you were attacking, and I would need to practice blocking you out.”

“It will, eventually. But you’re not there yet. Tonight you just needed to get used to the feeling without panicking and hurting yourself.” She paused. “You did well.”

“So we’ll be doing this again?”

“Only if you – if you want to be able to resist when a vampire tries to control you for real,” she said. “You’ll probably see your Illusion get stronger, too. Not as much as if you were really a vampire, but... Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?”

“You didn’t hurt me,” he said.

A look of relief passed over her face, and she visibly relaxed. They sat and stared quietly into the fire.

“Okay,” Serana said finally, “that’s enough depressing conversation for one night. Tell me a story. You must have a few from your travels. Maybe tell me what Cyrodiil was like?”

Alexien smiled, and told her.


	11. Brelyna Saves the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2,000 hits, you guys are awesome! Thanks as always for the kudos and comments. It’s going to be a long, long way until the end of this whole thing (including the main quest and Dragonborn), but I’m enjoying writing and am glad you’re enjoying reading!

_9 Morning Star, 4E 201._

_Magister Alexien of Winterhold to Commander Isran of the Dawnguard. Greetings._

_I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that I have found Serana’s information to be credible. The bad news is the same, actually._

_We succeeded in finding a Moth Priest. Events showed that this was a wise course to have followed: Harkon’s agents were also in pursuit of him. Evidence suggests that the Elder Scroll and its interpretation are critical to their plans. The three vampires we encountered will not be reporting anything back to Harkon; the Moth Priest, Dexion Evicus, is safe at the College of Winterhold._

_The Prophecy, as read and interpreted to us by the Moth Priest, is ambiguous but potentially catastrophic. More information required. There are two more Elder Scrolls that Serana and I need to find. All we can say for certain is that one of them apparently contains the location of Auriel’s Bow, which Harkon needs in order to fulfill his ambition. Obviously “prevent the weapon of a literal god from falling into the megalomaniacal vampire lord’s clutches” has moved to the top of our list of priorities._

_I have found Serana to be completely trustworthy in all things. The Dawnguard might do well to reconsider some of its positions and to seek allies among, or at least a truce with, the more reasonable vampires (i.e. those that do not seek to bring about the end of the world), rather than driving them into Harkon’s camp._

_Serana sends her love, and requests that I bid you think on her parting words from last time. Farewell._

_P.S. Send reply to Dawnstar._

* * *

_16 Morning Star, 4E 201._

_Isran to Alexien._

_“The more reasonable vampires.” Are you insane? I always suspected mages’ heads weren’t screwed onto their necks properly, and now I know._

_Other than your grossly inappropriate and foolish choice of companion, good work. Continue to seek the Scrolls if you wish, but your main goal (besides killing any and all of the undead monstrosities you encounter) is obtaining this Bow to keep it from Harkon. Evaluation of weapon’s usefulness against vampires?_

_Do not trust the one you are traveling with. It will turn on you. Recommend putting a stake through its heart immediately. If no stake is to be found, you’re a wizard: think of something._

* * *

_22 Morning Star, 4E 201._

_Serana to Isran._

_Hello again._

_I’m writing at Alexien’s request, because he is otherwise indisposed. Trying to sate my insatiable appetite takes a lot out of him, you know._

_He would like me to assure you that that was a joke. No comment._

_In fact, he injured his wrist by – well, you don’t care, it’s a story with a lot of obscure magical jargon and the number of dead vampires involved is zero (unless you count me, in which case it is exactly one, technically). The good news is he spoke with a Daedric Prince and came out on top. The bad news is it was Vaermina, so we’ve both been creeped out for a couple of nights now. Dawnstar is much nicer without the constant nightmares though._

_Alexien is requesting I copy his exact words. Fine. “Since I have not seen Auriel’s Bow, nor as far as I know has anyone else for several thousand years, I have not been able to evaluate its usefulness as a tool for vampire-slaying. Since, however, it is a bow, and presumably it shoots arrows, and an arrow is basically a propelled stake, my guess as to how effective it would be is ‘very.’”_

_Must go now. Necks don’t bite themselves._

_He wants me to say that was also a joke. It wasn’t though._

_P.S. Send reply to the College of Winterhold._

* * *

_27 Morning Star, 4E 201._

_Isran to Alexien._

_You are instructed to return to Fort Dawnguard immediately, with proof of the death of the vampire calling itself ‘Serana.’_

_Bring the Moth Priest as well._

* * *

_4 Sun’s Dawn, 4E 201._

_Alexien de la Roche to Sorine Jurard. Greetings._

_You will find enclosed copies of my recent correspondence with Isran. Talk to him, please. When he’s calmed down a bit, and not before, please pass on the enclosed letter. You have my permission to open and read the contents._

_It may be wise to talk to him again after he reads the letter, actually._

_I have reason to suspect that we may be delving rather deep into Dwemer ruins in the near future. The prospect is less than thrilling. I will, however, take copious notes of everything we see, and if we happen to survive, the notes are yours. Consider it payment for your intercession with Isran._

_I would of course welcome your assistance with this venture, but alas, time does not permit. The College library, however, has copies of some of your articles, which I have found both interesting in themselves and useful for the avoidance of decapitation._

_Serana bids me wish you well. I think she’s serious. There’s also something about a crossbow which I refuse to put down on paper. Farewell._

* * *

_3 Sun’s Dawn, 4E 201._

_Magister Alexien of Winterhold to Commander Isran of the Dawnguard. Greetings._

_~~I would sooner lay Fort Dawnguard waste than~~ ~~see~~ ~~‘the vampire calling itself’~~ _

_~~Serana is unharmed. You won’t be if~~ _

_Critical mission exigencies prevent the fulfillment of your request. Serana’s continued assistance indispensable._

_I would remind you that I am not a member of the Dawnguard, and work with you on a purely voluntary basis._

_That said, I am happy to continue to work with you and the rest of the Dawnguard, on said voluntary basis, as long as our goals are in alignment. My goal is stopping an ancient vampire who is possibly the agent of a Daedric Lord from blotting out the sun and destroying all life on Nirn. I assume that this is a goal you share. If nothing else, I estimate that the number of vampires I am forced to immolate in pursuit of this goal will be quite high._

_I have no intention of returning to Fort Dawnguard in the near future. We have picked up the trail of another Elder Scroll, and it seems to be here in the north of Skyrim. The Moth Priest will remain safely at the College._

_Any future directives with regard to Serana will be ignored. This subject is closed forever._

_P.S. Since writing, vampire attack in town of Winterhold. Unknown if related to Harkon. Several townspeople dead; bodies burned. Two vampires neutralized. One of them killed by Serana. Event emphasizes wisdom of continued cooperation between Dawnguard and College._

_Above closed subject remains closed. Farewell._

* * *

_12 Sun’s Dawn, 4E 201._

_Sorine Jurard to Alexien de la Roche. [Letter unopened by him.]_

_See, this is why no one likes people from Wayrest._

_It took a while, but I think I managed to smooth things over with Isran. Both times. But it would be a good idea for you to stop by again at some point, just to reassure him that you’re not a vampire. He’s promised not to have Serana killed on sight, which is something._

_Believe it or not, his heart is in the right place. _

_If you’re going where I think you’re going – be careful. Dwemer ruins are not for the uninitiated. And if you’re looking for Blackreach – well, if it even exists, it’s haunted by more rumors than all the other Dwemer sites in Tamriel combined. I’d love to be the one to discover it, but not as much as I would love not getting skinned alive by Falmer and fed living to a chaurus. Farewell._

* * *

“Right,” Serana was saying. “I’m not going to hold back this time. This time it’s for real. If you don’t stop me, I’m going to go rummaging around in your memories.”

They were back at the College, sitting on the floor in one of the warded rooms used for spell practice. Alexien was trying not to break eye contact.

“Not the embarrassing ones, please,” he said.

She smirked. “Think of your most embarrassing, most shameful, deepest, darkest secret. That’s your motivation for stopping me.”

Well, as motivations went, that would definitely do the job. Alexien took a deep breath.

“You know,” said Serana, “we still don’t have to do this. You’ve already improved a lot.”

“I can do better.”

“There’s a fine line between ‘bold’ and ‘stubborn.’”

“I _will_ do better.”

Serana rolled her eyes. “That’s fine, ignore me and my centuries of experience and just go vaulting right on over that line.”

“What, are you getting scared now?” asked Alexien. “I almost had you last time.”

“All right then, I guess we’re doing this,” said Serana. “Deepest darkest secret, coming right up.” She paused. “Ready?”

Alexien nodded. He was staring into her eyes –

And suddenly her mental presence hit him like a physical strike, immediate, overwhelming, irresistible. He should just give in. It would be easier, less painful, better, if he just surrendered at once. A power like hers could not be defeated; there was no withstanding it, no repelling it, no enduring it. Even if he tried to fight, he would fail. She would take what she wanted in any event.

His will wavered. He hadn’t expected her to be that fast. Strong, yes, but he thought he would have had longer to build a defense. She gave him no time. The very foundations of his wall were swept away and buried.

No – that wasn’t true.

 _Yes, it is_.

No – that was just the image she was forcing on his mind, the despair, the sense of futility she was sending into him. He recognized now the alien pattern in those thoughts. They were not his own.

The attack slowed, stopped, fell away like a wave breaking and being swept back out to sea; but it reformed, changed, and rushed into him again. Why should he _want_ to resist? This was just Serana. She was a friend. He could trust her. He _did_ trust her. Why was he fighting her like this, shutting her out like this? She deserved better from him.

_The smell of burning filled his nose, the acrid smoke stung his eyes. Screaming. They were still screaming. Charred flesh, burnt, blackened, blistering. He rubbed the ashes between his fingers._

He was back in the room at the College, sitting on the stone floor, facing Serana. She was looking at him with some concern. He felt like he had been running for miles.

“Alexien?” Serana asked tentatively.

“That... wasn’t fair.” His voice was shaking; he forced it to be calm and querulous. “Low blow.”

Serana eyed him a moment longer. Then she gave a quick forced laugh. “What, you think my father or his retainers will play fair if they’re trying to invade your mind for real? Whatever they think your intellectual or emotional weakness is, that’s where they’re going to hit you.” She hesitated. “To be honest, though, I... wasn’t expecting that particular line of attack to be so successful. Sorry about that.”

He looked up at her, met her eyes. Serana wondered what she should say, if she should say anything. Would he welcome it or be angry if she asked about...?

A knock at the door. “ _Entrez_ ,” called Alexien, without looking away.

The door opened, and Mirabelle stepped in. “Alexien,” she said, with a slight bow. “Serana. I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Just some practice.” Alexien stood up. He offered his arm to Serana, who rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, ignored it, and rose to her feet with inhuman grace. “What time is it?”

“Two hours past dawn. Practicing already? You just got back last night.”

“It’s an important survival skill.”

Mirabelle eyed him curiously. “Right. Well, regardless. Savos is asking for you. And he looked none too happy.”

“Do you know what it’s about?”

She shrugged. “Oh, and Tolfdir wants to talk to you about what you found in Saarthal.”

Alexien sighed. “I’ll go find them, then.”

He turned to Serana, but before he could say anything she spoke up: “Don’t worry about me, I’ll find something to entertain myself. I’ll probably be in the Arcaneum when you’re done.”

Alexien nodded, and turned and walked out with Mirabelle, chatting quickly in Breton.

Leaving Serana alone.

Not that that was a bad thing. She was used to being alone, and usually liked it that way. With other people around she could never hear her own thoughts. She just wasn’t sure if she _wanted_ to hear her own thoughts this time.

She shouldn’t have pushed so hard. Yes, Alexien had asked her to, but that was only because he didn’t know what he was asking. He hardly ever looked at her like she was a vampire anymore. She had probably just forcibly reminded him of that fact.

And she had based her attack on his... trust? Yes, that was it: she had made a weapon of friendship, mixed in just a bit of guilt, and his defenses had melted away like wax. Which meant... something, probably.

Serana shook her head, and decided to go for a walk in the courtyard. She pulled her hood up over her face and stepped outside.

She paced a few laps back and forth through the garden, and then slowed down and started examining the plants more closely. Most of these she had raised with her mother, actually. It was Valerica who had taught her their names and properties. But they had always worked at night; she had never taken the time to examine the flowers or the green foliage under the light of day. They looked both familiar and different, like a long-unseen and much-changed friend.

She caught a glimpse of Alexien’s apprentice – Brelyna? – walking around the edge of the courtyard, her nose in a book. Serana started to move out of view, but at that moment the girl raised her head, noticed her, and waved.

Serana sighed and waved back, and stood while Brelyna approached her.

“You’re back,” the Dunmer said brightly. “Welcome back. Serana, right? Can I call you that? We talked a bit at the dinner when you were here last but I don’t think I ever asked you.” She said all this very quickly.

“You can call me that, since it’s my name. Alexien does.”

“Oh, is he here with you? No, of course he is, they wouldn’t –” she cut herself off.

“Wouldn’t let a vampire in unsupervised?”

Brelyna flushed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”

“It’s okay. I’ve heard much worse.” Serana paused and looked Brelyna over. _Might as well_. She gestured towards one of the garden paths. “Walk with me?”

Brelyna nodded, and Serana took the lead. They walked for a few minutes in silence. It seemed very unnatural on her.

“What’s the book?” Serana asked.

“ _Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls_ ,” Brelyna answered, showing her the title page. “Alexien asked me to read it and tell him if I found anything interesting,” she said proudly.

“Did he? I looked over that book. It was incomprehensible.”

“It’s not incomprehensible! Well, not entirely. Sort of. In places. Once you’ve read it through a couple of times and got used to the mixed metaphors inside metaphors and you stop expecting it to make _logical_ sense, you can almost understand it.”

“So you understand it?”

“Um... parts of it?” Brelyna said hesitantly. “That’s what I wanted to talk to Alexien about. I mean, I could be completely off-base and wrong, but I think I pieced something together.”

Serana stopped. “Really?”

Brelyna nodded in excitement.

Serana started walking again. “Well, Alexien looks to be busy for quite a while. Savos summoned him, and then he’s supposed to talk to Tolfdir.”

“Oh. Well, that’s actually okay, though. You talk to him a lot, right? So I can just tell you and give you my notes and then you can pass it along.”

“You’re willing to share that with me?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Serana said nothing for a few steps. “All right, what have you found?”

“Well,” said Brelyna, “have you ever heard of Blackreach?”

“No.”

“Perfect! Because it may or may not even exist. It’s just a hypothesis based off an extremely tenuous translation of a couple of fragmentary inscriptions found scattered in different Dwemer ruins.”

“So it’s a Dwemer ruin?”

“Maybe?”

Serana stopped again. “Maybe I should just let you explain.”

Brelyna nodded excitedly. “The word in the inscriptions has been reconstructed as something like _Fal’zhardum-Din_. Which according to Master Ghelein means something like ‘Blackest Kingdom Reach,’ but in the scholarly literature it’s usually shortened to ‘Blackreach.’ It’s kind of... well, it’s not clear if it’s supposed to refer to a city or a geological feature, or both, or maybe neither? But some researchers have hypothesized, based on the spread of metallurgic styles, that there’s some kind of secret link between all the Dwemer sites in Skyrim, hidden deep beneath the deepest parts of the cities that anyone’s ever explored.”

“Okay,” said Serana. “And this underground link might be the same thing as ‘Blackreach.’”

“Exactly! At least, some people think so.”

“So what does this have to do with the book?”

“Well, that’s the thing. On the surface, nothing at all; Master Signus is interested in Elder Scrolls, not semi-legendary hypothesized reconstructions of Dwemer archaeological sites. But after you’ve read his book a few times... Well, most of the metaphors just seem like the ramblings of a psychotic, but I think there’s a common thread through a lot of them. Especially the further you go in the book, like over time he’s getting more and more focused on a specific thing.”

“And that specific thing is... Dwemer?”

“Not... exactly? That’s why I wanted to ask Alexien, I could be totally wrong. But it seems like... the metaphors he chooses, they only make sense if Dwemer stuff was on his mind. If he was trying to _think_ like a Dwemer. There’s a lot about ‘deep calling to deep’ and ‘water transmutated by the touch of triangles,’ which might be a reference to steam power, if you buy into the geometromathemagical theory that the elements can all be represented by equilateral polygons and that triangles in particular compose the element of _fire_.”

“Okay, I follow,” said Serana. “That’s completely insane, but I follow.”

Brelyna nodded quickly. She was almost bouncing on her feet. “Right! But it makes sense if that’s where Master Signus’ mind was. I mean, either that, or his insane ramblings truly are just totally random. But I don’t think so. As I said, there’s a trend, where these Dwemer-ish metaphors for the Elder Scrolls increase in frequency over time. I copied out a table, I can show you. And then for the last few pages he just wrote over and over, ‘They have it in the depths, deep above the surface; but how can I finless swim up through the earth to reach it? At the crossroads they hid it, lost, forgotten, found; but still lost in the bright blackness.’”

“That’s...” Serana thought a moment. “I mean, I don’t like basing decisions on patterns allegedly found in the incomprehensible gibberish of a madman.”

“Oh,” said Brelyna, disappointed.

“No, I think you’re probably right though. That sounds reasonable. And it’s more than we had to go on ten minutes ago.”

Brelyna nodded happily.

“So, where’s this Blackreach?”

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it, no one knows? No one’s ever been there or actually been able to confirm if it even exists or not. I mean, of course expeditions have tried to find it, but no one ever hears from them again, do they?”

“Of course, because why would this be easy? So we know where an Elder Scroll is but not where the _where_ is.”

“Yep yep,” she said. “Hey, you know what that means?”

Serana eyed her suspiciously.

“It means,” Brelyna said gravely, “the more, the merrier, right? You guys will need all the help you can get. I should probably go with you.”

“And what does Alexien say about that?”

“Um...”

“I thought so. Sorry, but no.”

“Oh, come on! I’m the same age as... oh.”

Serana laughed. “You were going to say, the same age as me, then you remembered I’m immortal?”

“Um. Maybe?”

Serana shook her head, smiling.

“I’m still a mage, though! I can cast wards and heal and sometimes set on fire the things I mean to set on fire. And I’m better at figuring out things like this than even Alexien is, he says so. Almost. He sort of hints at it sometimes.”

Serana stopped. “All right, let’s see what you’ve got, then.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Cast your ward. If you can block what I’m going to do, I’ll tell Alexien you’re ready to come with us.”

“What... are you going to do?”

“Magic.”

Brelyna looked surprised, and nervous, but she nodded once to herself determinedly and took a few steps backwards. She extended her left hand and drew up a shield, blue-white and humming with power. It was thready around the edges but otherwise looked solid.

Serana threw a hand forwards, and the ward shattered.

Brelyna’s eyes went wide.

“You’re not ready yet,” said Serana. “Look, I like you. And I owe you. But if you go with us, you’ll die. I could have killed you right now without trying, and Alexien and I have fought things that have almost killed _both of us_ together.”

Brelyna said nothing. She bit her lip and nodded.

“My offer stands, though,” said Serana. “When you can block my attacks, I’ll tell Alexien you’re coming with us whether he likes it or not. If that’s something you still want.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Brelyna grinned, half-nervous and half-excited. “Well, I have a lot of practicing to do, then. I guess you’ll be off to find Master Signus?”

“Why?”

“Because he probably knows where Blackreach is?”

Serana shook her head. “We don’t even know where _he_ is, though.”

“Sea of Ghosts,” said Brelyna promptly. “He all but says so in his book. ‘In a mountain not of rock nor earth, where water and sky meet, from a decade of decades the collapse watches me watching it.’ That probably means he’s on an iceberg somewhere in the Sea of Ghosts, maybe within sight of Winterhold? Judging by the height above sea level of the College and the prevailing currents in this part of the Padomaic Ocean, I would guess that means a maximum of about twenty miles north-northeast of here.”

Serana stared at her.

“I mean... don’t you think so?” Brelyna asked, nervous again. “I could always recheck my calculations if that doesn’t sound right to you, but I was really careful and I’m almost sort of sure I did it correctly.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Serana. “Well, Brelyna, you may have just literally saved the world with math.”

She grinned. “So does that –”

“No.”

“Right. Practice.” She paused. “Anyway, I should go, I’m probably late for Alteration. Bye Serana!”

“Bye, Brelyna.”

And she ran off, leaving Serana alone again, deep in thought.

* * *

“Savos, you wanted to see me?” asked Alexien, entering the Archmage’s study. Then he stopped.

There was another figure in the room, a tall Altmer in black robes fringed with gold. Savos was talking to him, an ugly expression on his face. They both stopped and looked over at Alexien.

“I did,” said Savos. “Please come in, Alexien, I’d like to introduce you to someone. This is Ancano, the Thalmor ambassador –”

“Advisor,” the elf corrected him, in a cold voice.

“– _advisor_ to the College. Elenwen just appointed him.”

Alexien bowed. “And on what will you be advising us?” he asked, in a respectful tone.

Ancano cocked his head, as if trying to determine whether Alexien was mocking him. “Proper behavior,” he said finally, “per your duties as citizens of the Cyrodiilic Empire in accordance with the White-Gold Concordat.”

“The College is an independent institution, as I was explaining to you,” said Savos. “Most of us, individually, are citizens of the Empire, but the College as an institution is not part of it.”

“Yes, your _independence_ is why I am here. Ambassador Elenwen has heard disturbing rumors about” – his eyes flicked towards Alexien – “disloyal elements within the College.”

“Meaning?” asked Alexien.

“Meaning,” said Ancano, “that Wayrest is said to offer clandestine support to the rebels in Hammerfell, contrary to its treaty obligations. Where else do the Bretons support rebellion, one wonders?”

“Ancano,” Savos explained in a dry voice, “would like to discuss with you the events at Morvunskar. And you will answer his questions with _exact_ honesty.”

Alexien understood. “Of course,” he said. “What would you like to know?”

“Why you helped Ulfric plan rebellion.”

“Rebellion?” asked Alexien, putting on confusion. “We never discussed anything like that.” Technically true.

“But he asked for your help, and you gave it?”

“I’m a resident of Skyrim; why shouldn’t I help a Jarl of Skyrim, if they request my help?”

“Your help planning a military operation to occupy a strategic site?”

“My help killing necromancers.”

“But surely he discussed with you the importance of the fortress? That it was on the road to Whiterun?”

“I had never been there; he had to tell me where to find it, didn’t he?”

“But the strategic significance of the location...”

Alexien shrugged. “I’ve never been in the military. I’m just a scholar. Why? Do you think Jarl Ulfric wants to go to war with someone?”

“Do you?”

“No.” _Not a war. Not if he can get what he wants without one._

Ancano watched him suspiciously. “And what about this mysterious ‘find’ from Saarthal?”

“That is not part of this discussion,” Savos broke in. “The research interests of members of the College are no business of yours or Elenwen’s.”

Ancano glared at him silently. “Very well,” he said. “But we will discuss this again.”

“No,” said Savos, “we will not.” He turned to Alexien. “Thank you. You may go.”

Alexien bowed and left.

* * *

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” asked Tolfdir. Alexien had just joined him in the Hall of Elements, where he was examining the strange orb they had uncovered in Saarthal.

“Unclear,” said Alexien. “What is it?”

Tolfdir chuckled. “Well, that’s the question. So far we’ve been able to determine that it predates any living Tamrielic civilization. And it’s not Dwemer, Akaviri, or Daedric.”

“That leaves... what?”

“It leaves us a very exciting question! All we know about it so far is that it reacts _very_ strongly to the touch of magicka. It’s only safe here because Savos personally warded it off from the ambient energies of the College.”

They stared at the orb for a while in silence.

“So what do we call it?” Alexien asked.

“Some of the Breton apprentices have taken to calling it the Eye of Magnus. Originally a crude joke based on a common oath, I fear, but the name has unfortunately stuck.”

“By Magnus’s eye,” muttered Alexien.

“Yes, precisely.”

“So how can I help?”

“I just wanted to update you on what we’ve found,” said Tolfdir. “Which happens to be very little. So if you have time to spend some thought on it in the future, it would be appreciated.”

“I’ll add it to the list.” Alexien watched it rotating slowly in the air. “Is it dangerous?”

“Oh, almost certainly.”

“Splendid.”

Tolfdir nodded. They fell silent again. “Be careful, Alexien.”

“With what?”

“With what you’re doing out there. You’ve always been cautious, but not cautious enough. And now you’re taking even more danger upon yourself.”

“It has to be done,” he said wearily.

“But not alone.”

“I’m not alone.”

Tolfdir watched him. “Of course,” he said finally. “Then be careful for both of you. And thank you for stopping to talk with an old man.”

Alexien shook his head and smiled. “Always a pleasure, Tolfdir.”

* * *

“Hey,” said Serana. “It turns out your apprentice is a lot smarter than either of us.”

Alexien closed the door to his rooms, and found Serana sitting at his desk, reading. He frowned. “Well, I hope you didn’t _tell_ her that.”

“It was implied.”

Alexien smiled and sat down. “So you and Brelyna have been having a chat? Did she ask you if she could come with us?”

“We have, and she did,” said Serana. “I may have... discouraged her a bit. But I think it’ll be good for her? I hope so, at least, because I actually like her. But anyway, she’s solved our problem of where to go next.”

He looked puzzled for a moment, then understanding dawned. “Ah, she figured out Septimus’ book? Good for her.”

“Exactly. So, we’re in agreement, I assume, that what we need to do is find the two additional Elder Scrolls mentioned by Dexion; one of them will point us towards Auriel’s Bow, which we need to keep away from my father, and one of them will tell us... well, we don’t actually have any idea, except that it’s probably important.”

“Perfectly in agreement,” said Alexien. “I have some thoughts on Auriel’s Bow, by the way, but I’ll tell you later. Please continue.”

Serana nodded. “So, Brelyna, by the application of some truly insane reasoning and a lot of mystifyingly clever insight, has drawn two conclusions, and I think she’s right about both of them. First, Septimus is on an iceberg in the Sea of Ghosts near here. Second, he knows exactly where an Elder Scroll is: in a place called Blackreach, which he probably also knows how to find.”

“Blackreach,” Alexien said darkly. “Well, this just keeps getting better.”

“You know about it?”

“Some. I never believed it was real until this very moment. But it’s about the worst place possible for us to go looking for an Elder Scroll, so of course it’s real.”

“So what can we expect there?”

“Dwemer automata, which I’ve never fought before. Probably whole legions of Falmer. Chauruses. I _have_ seen a chaurus before, but it was dead and on the dissecting table, and I’m not eager to see one in the wild. Not to mention the usual risks of traps and cave-ins and gods-only-know what else.”

Serana waved a hand dismissively. “No need to worry about any of that. And do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll keep you safe.”

Alexien smiled. “No doubt you will. But who’ll keep you safe?”

“Easy: that’ll also be me.”

“Well,” said Alexien, laughing, “you’ve clearly got this handled and I’ll just be dead weight, so I see no reason why I should go with you.”

“In case we get lost underground and I need a meal,” Serana smiled. Then she frowned. “Wait, that was a joke, but that might actually be a problem. How would Winterhold feel if I borrowed half a dozen or so of the villagers for a while?”

“Less than enthusiastic.”

“They’re so picky, I don’t get all their rules. ‘Don’t kill anyone, don’t eat anyone, just generally don’t be evil,’ blah blah. But fine. I’ll just have to start making potions and hope they don’t run out.”

“Will that... be okay?” He looked genuinely concerned.

Serana shrugged. “The potions aren’t as filling as the real thing. It’ll take me time to make enough, and I’ll still need, you know, _ingredients_. And I can only carry so many. But it’ll have to do.”

“I’ll carry some as well,” he volunteered.

“Obviously you will,” said Serana, but with a grateful smile. “But that’s why you’re coming – for when the potions run out, remember?”

“Oh, obviously.”

Serana was silent a while. “Thank you, though,” she said. “For not... being weird about this.”

“Well... we both have to eat, right?” He gave an awkward shrug.

She laughed. “Sometimes,” she said – and she put more weight into the words than her tone suggested – “I think you forget I’m not actually human.”

“I know you’re a vampire,” Alexien said easily. “It just doesn’t matter to me.”

Serana’s gaze fell on his eyes. He stared back without fear.

“You’re an idiot,” she said.

“What, does it matter to you that I’m _not_ a vampire?”

“That’s... hardly the same thing, and you know it.”

“And that’s not an answer.”

Serana looked away. “So,” she said, “you said you had some thoughts on the Bow?”

“I... did, yes,” said Alexien. He recovered quickly. “It was Isran that gave me the idea.”

“Oh gods, this is going to be a terrible idea, I can already tell.”

“I actually think he’s on to something this time. Albeit by accident. It was when he asked how efficacious Auriel’s Bow would be for killing vampires.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Serana made a grimace.

“Well... a weapon associated with the power of the sun? Created and wielded by a literal god?”

“Yes?”

“And not just any god,” Alexien went on. “Specifically one of the Aedra. The actual _Aedra_ , Serana. As in, the opposite of the Daedra.”

Serana’s eyes narrowed, then widened suddenly. “You want to use it against my father.”

“You’ve said he’s... protected, by some kind of power that you hypothesize is Daedric. What better to counter that than an Aedric weapon?”

“You actually want to kill my father.”

“Well,” said Alexien, faltering, “no, but –”

“Why not? I sure as fuck do. I mean...” Serana shook her head, took a deep breath. “I don’t. But I’ve always sort of assumed... if it might actually be possible... damn it.” She slumped over in her chair. “I hate this,” she said after a while. “I really, really hate this.”

Alexien reached out and took her hand. She grasped his back, and did not pull away.

“I wish my mother were here,” Serana mumbled. “I know, pathetic, right? But she’d at least know what to do. I mean, by the Night, she probably knows where _both_ Elder Scrolls are and exactly what we’re supposed to do with them.”

“You...” he hesitated. “You haven’t told me much about her.”

“I know.” Serana straightened a bit. “Her name was – her name _is_ – Valerica. I was actually thinking of her earlier. When I was in the garden, just before Brelyna found me. She... well, she was pretty horrible, actually. She and my father are made for each other. But I still miss her. The garden – she always kept a garden at the Castle, and I would help her tend it while she taught me the alchemical uses of each plant, what kind of soil it needed, how to make it grow. It was... peaceful.”

“There’s nothing wrong with missing that,” Alexien said. “It sounds nice.”

Serana shook her head. “No – I mean, yes, all that _was_ nice, but it’s not... I tried to pick up her trail, when I first went back to the Castle. That was what I wanted to do, why I told you I was going to want... some time alone for a while. But it’s like she just disappeared off the face of the world. Which _sucks_ , because it was _her_ idea that I be sealed away in that crypt for _nine hundred fucking years_ , and I always just assumed... assumed she knew what she was doing. That she had a plan, and she’d be there for me when I got out, and she’d make it all make sense. But no, instead I was awakened by a clueless mortal, and now we’re still clueless together.” She looked suddenly at Alexien, her face stricken. “I – I didn’t mean –”

“It’s okay,” said Alexien gently. He still looked hurt.

“Fuck,” Serana mumbled, and laid her head down on the desk. “Sorry. You should probably just leave me here alone for a while, until I can pull myself together and take my foot out of my mouth.”

“Nope. I’m staying right here.” He still held her hand in his, and stroked it lightly with his thumb.

“Still wish she were here,” Serana said faintly. “She’d know what to do. And she’d like you. No, scratch that, no she wouldn’t. She might tolerate you, though. Possibly. But probably not.”

“She sounds fun. I look forward to meeting her.”

She gave a weak laugh. “With our luck, you’ll probably get your wish. Just remember, I warned you.”

They stayed like that for a while, without talking. Alexien heard Serana give one little sob, just once, and then she fell silent again.

“You know,” said Alexien, “there’s one reason I’m glad she’s _not_ here.”

Serana raised her head up. “And what, pray tell, is that?”

“Because then you wouldn’t need _my_ help.”

She looked at him blankly for a moment, then a smile spread over her face. “I think we both know _you’re_ the one who needs _my_ help.”

“No arguments there,” said Alexien. “This is your quest and Brelyna’s; I’m just here to taunt the bad guys and occasionally throw a fireball.”

“And you do both _very well_ ,” Serana said reassuringly. She sat up straight and pulled away, and ran her hands through her hair. “All right, all right. I’m good now. Elder Scrolls, Auriel’s Bow, Blackreach. Let’s do this.”

Alexien grinned. “We can leave in a couple of days. The Sea of Ghosts – I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s a good thing it’s still winter. We can probably just walk across the ice the whole way.”

“And if not, I’ll just have you magic up a boat for us. You know, to make sure you feel important.”

“You’re too kind.” He gave her a smile and started to get up.

“Alexien –” Serana started quickly. He looked at her quizzically. “That is... I mean, I know this probably isn’t a great time right now, but I had been wondering if you... Would you like to talk about earlier? About that memory?” she asked hesitantly.

Alexien froze.

“You don’t have to,” she said hurriedly.

He didn’t say anything for several moments. “No, it’s probably a good idea,” he finally answered. “Well, that... that was the first time I ever killed someone with magic. Or with anything, but I just happened to use magic. Fire.”

Serana nodded. He could go on, if he wanted to.

“It was when I was leaving High Rock,” he said, settling into the story. “I had joined a merchant caravan crossing the mountains to Markarth – it’s not a safe route, so travels always try to stay in large groups.”

“Bandits?”

“That’s... well, that’s kind of the point,” said Alexien. “Yes, _but_. Most bandits don’t do banditry full-time. They’re usually peasants who make a side job of robbing travelers, while they’re waiting for the crops to grow or the rains to come. Often it’s the only time people in these remote areas ever actually see real money. They just do it to survive.”

“Touching. So what happened?”

“Our caravan was stopped at an inn one night, about mid-way through the mountains. I was talking to a local kid, maybe about thirteen or fourteen. The innkeep’s son, I think. But he had a lot of questions about High Rock and what we were doing and where we were going. _Now_ I know he was fishing for information on the caravan, but at the time I just thought he was curious. And I enjoyed chatting with him – probably the teacher in me – so I answered him.” Alexien put on a bitter smile. “He probably couldn’t believe his luck at finding someone so fucking _gullible_.”

“You were young, too,” said Serana gently.

“And people died because of it,” he said. “They knew right where we would be going, and they set up an ambush, and we walked right into it. Four or five of us died before we even knew we were under attack.”

Serana said nothing.

“It was my first real fight,” said Alexien. “I drew my sword and waved it around a bit, pointlessly. Then I remembered I was a mage. I didn’t need a sword. I had _fire_.” He fell silent again a while. “It’s a lot harder to kill someone than people think. Not just emotionally hard. Bodies are supposed to stay alive. I had no idea what it would take to kill someone with magic. I... didn’t put enough power in the spell, I think. Or didn’t focus it enough. Whatever the reason, I didn’t make the flames anything like hot enough to kill outright. They... it wasn’t fast, for them. That kid from the inn – he was there, for some blasted reason, and I watched him _melt_. Alive.”

“That’s... not pleasant,” Serana admitted. “But they would have killed you all without a second thought, and would have slept well after doing it. You saved lives. You shouldn’t let that eat at you.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t feel any guilt over it. That’s the thing. Just... anger, and contempt. Scorn that they were so weak. Remember at the cave, when I said I was already _too_ okay with killing? That’s why that memory sticks with me. Because I burned them alive and watched them scream, and it should bother me, and it _doesn’t_. Mara help me.”

“Hey,” Serana said forcefully. “Look at me.” Their eyes met. She did not look away. “I’ve never understood why you think you’re some kind of monster. It just sounds absolutely absurd to me; you’re the kindest person I’ve ever known. Yes, it’s a low bar, but still.” She paused. “But even if you _were_ all that bad... I don’t care. I’m your friend. And I’ll always be here for you.”

“Well,” said Alexien, trying to joke, “not _always_ , once –”

“Alexien, shut up. Yes, always.”

He reached for her hand; she gave it. “I know,” he said.

“All right,” said Serana, smiling, and gave his hand a squeeze, “don’t get sappy. All I’ve done is rip one of your worst memories out of your mind and force you to talk about it so we could bond over the trauma, it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything.”

Alexien laughed. “Well, not to you, maybe.”

Serana paused. “And... thanks for letting me vent,” she said. Then she grinned. “I knew there had to be some reason I was keeping you alive. Speaking of which, you look like you might literally drop dead without sleep, so you’re going to bed right now.”

“Going, going. I just need to write a letter first.”

“Nope. In the morning.” She gave him a push.

“Fine, in the morning, then we’ll get ready to leave.”

* * *

 _4_ _Sun’s Dawn, 4E 201._

_Alexien to Brelyna. Greetings._

_If you’re reading this, I’m afraid Serana and I have had to leave Winterhold again, already, without my having the chance to see you. I’m sorry for that._

_I wanted to thank you for your help with Septimus, and to make sure you know that I’m proud of you. I’ve been gone far too often and too long to be a good mentor to you, but you’ve shown that you don’t need it, and have flourished in spite of everything._

_There is a very_ _significant risk_ _that_ _I_ _might not come back_ _alive_ _. If I’m wrong, and I do, then I’ll tell Mirabelle that you’re ready for your trials, and I’ll support your promotion to full wizard. Otherwise, I’ve written a letter_ _commending you_ _to Tolfdir; he’ll finish your training and see you through._

_Farewell._


	12. Discerning the Transmundane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter might be delayed a bit; I'll be on vacation next week with limited internet access.

As they traveled up the coast to the northern edge of Skyrim, Serana filled Alexien in on the details of her conversation with Brelyna (“Excellent! I _told_ her that studying Master Platonas would be well worth her time”), while Alexien went through what Savos and Tolfdir had wanted. He noticed that neither of them had really _asked_ the other to explain; it was just assumed that of course they would tell each other everything.

“I’m not sure I understand the political situation with the... Thalmor, was it?” Serana asked.

“How so?”

“Well, they’re the enemies of the Empire, right? So if they thought you were supporting rebellion against the Empire wouldn’t they shower you with accolades?”

Alexien thought for a moment. “I wondered that too,” he admitted. “But no, not if they thought that whatever resulted from the rebellion would be even more hostile than the Empire already is. Remember, technically the Imperial forces are currently _allied_ with the Thalmor in enforcing the White-Gold Concordat; it suits their purposes much better of Cyrodiilic forces are marching around Skyrim making themselves unpopular than if they had to do it themselves.”

They walked on a few steps in silence. “Besides,” Alexien continued, “I think they want the Empire to be as divided against itself as it can possibly be while still remaining united. If the Emperor has to worry about disloyal elements in Skyrim, in High Rock, in Hammerfell, in Morrowind – then he won’t have much energy left over to worry about the Thalmor. So they want to turn up the pressure, but stop just short of _too much_. If things got bad enough that those provinces actually succeeded in breaking away from the Empire, then they’d face a much smaller but more compact and homogeneous Cyrodiil, not to mention a _really_ pissed off coalition of former Imperial provinces. No, a weak, distracted, but still single Empire suits their purposes much better.” He paused. “Not that that’ll stop them from supporting _both_ sides if there actually is a war. The victory of either side would be their loss.”

“So Ancano’s real purpose at the College is... what? To fan the flames or lull them down?”

“Oblivion if I know. He probably doesn’t know himself, and just has vague orders about making as much trouble as he can.” Alexien shook his head. “I’m not worried about it. Savos will deal with the politics, and he’ll keep us out of it as he always does.”

After that they came to the coast, the extreme northern edge of the continent. The cliffs of Winterhold stretched up behind them, and before them was the sea. Serana sighed in contentment.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“It’s frozen,” said Alexien, pulling his heavy cloak tighter around his body.

“Ice can be pretty.”

“I’m not denying it’s pretty. I’m just denying that I want to walk twenty miles out onto the open ocean.”

Serana rolled her eyes, and took a few steps out onto the ice. Alexien followed her.

Despite Serana’s initial nonchalance, they both found that journey over the ice much worse than the blizzard in the mountains had been. For one, it was colder, and they had to be more careful about using magic for warmth. For another, they made slow progress and were forced to camp out that night over the ice, with no fire and no shelter from the winds.

“It’s beautiful,” Alexien said, as they huddled together under a blanket. Serana punched him on the arm.

The next day they trudged on. They came to one point where a warm current had broken through the ice like a river, leaving a few hundred feet of open water between them and the ice sheet beyond. After debating alternative solutions for a while, they decided that simple brute force would serve best, and that they should just refreeze a path for themselves. But it took most of both of their magicka, combined, to turn enough of the brine to ice for it to be safe to walk across. They were all the more exhausted afterwards.

As they crossed, however, Serana looked back over her shoulder and reflected that it had been worth it, to stand side-by-side like that with someone just as talented as herself, for them to cast a difficult spell, together, as equals. She wanted to say something about this to Alexien; but before she could find the words, she caught his eye, he smiled and gave her a nod, and she knew he understood.

Just a night was falling, Serana saw something.

“Is that... a door?” she asked. “In an iceberg?”

Alexien looked, but couldn’t see. He closed his eyes and extended his magical senses, and immediately caught the electric tingle of power. “Your eyes are better than mine,” he said. “But there’s definitely something arcane in that direction.”

“Promising. And it’s shelter, at least.”

Alexien insisted they knock on the door, but there was no answer. Serana found it was unlocked and stepped inside as if she owned it. Alexien lowered his hood and walked in behind her.

A large cavern opened in the ice, with a path leading down. They heard a voice coming from below, muttering repetitively. Something about that voice made Serana uneasy; she gestured to Alexien to be careful and muffled their footsteps. Alexien mentally prepared a barrier spell and walked quietly behind Serana.

The muttering became, not intelligible, but clearly audible: “Dig, Dwemer, dig in the beyond! I’ll know your lost unknown and rise to your depths. Ah, how long will it be sung? How long will the rock turn to mud beneath my feet?”

“That... would be Septimus,” Alexien whispered. Serana nodded.

They turned a corner and came into view. A blue-robed wizard, still muttering to himself, stood in front of – of a large cube of some bronzish metal, presumably Dwemer, based on Septimus’ words.

He was aware of them at once. He gave a polite nod in their direction, but went on speaking to himself: “The ice entombs the heart, the life and bane of Kagrenac; the Dwemer lockbox hides it. Before it was, they hid it; after they have been, it will be free.”

Serana looked confused and uneasy. Alexien forced himself to relax and put on a friendly air. “Septimus?” he asked.

“Yes? Why are you?” Septimus asked. He turned to them and grinned. “Apprentice Alexien – Yes, yes, of course!” He suddenly frowned. “No, you are not here yet, it is not the now.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You are not here yet!”

“I apologize,” said Alexien graciously, “but I assure you, it is now, and I am here.”

Septimus looked at him suspiciously. Then he turned and examined Serana.

“I’m here too,” Serana said.

“You were never here,” said Septimus, confusion on his face. “The curtain comes down and covers you, and you have never arrived whence you will come.”

“Septimus,” said Alexien gently, “we’ve been looking for you. We hoped you would be able to help us.”

“Septimus is my name, yes.”

“Right. We read your book – it was very informative, by the way – and... well, we’re looking for an Elder Scroll, and we thought you might know where one is.”

“The Elder Scrolls!” exclaimed Septimus. “The Empire absconded with them, the ones they saw, the ones they thought they saw. But I know of one. Forgotten, sequestered. But I cannot go to it, for I have risen beyond its grasping.” He turned and gestured to the bronze cube, as if in explanation.

“What’s this?” asked Serana politely.

“The ice entombs the heart,” Septimus said again. “To harness it is to know. It is hidden with Dwemer craft – not by them but by their hands, for it is after them. Yet deeper insight than even the deep ones gives the Elder Scroll, to bring about the opening.” He gave them a shrewd look.

Serana immediately decided that under no circumstances did she want to look inside Septimus’ mind. “Well then,” she said, “I propose a trade. Tell us where to find the Scroll, and we’ll help you open the... lockbox.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” mumbled Alexien. Serana gave him a look that clearly said _Shut it_.

“One block raises another,” nodded Septimus.

They were all silent for a few moments.

“Well?” asked Serana.

“The Scroll is nearby,” said Septimus. “Indeed, it is here! Here in this plane, in Mundus.” He turned and gestured again at the lockbox. “You see this masterwork of the Dwemer, attuned for opening only to the song of an Elder Scroll. Luckily the Dwemer left their own way of reading. ‘Cast upon where Dwemer cities slept, the yearning spire its learnings kept.’ In the deeps of Blackreach one yet lies, and the means to read it. The key, the key that the lock was made to fit!”

“And where is Blackreach?” asked Serana, with apparent patience.

“Under the deep, below the dark. Alftand is the point of puncture. Delve to its limits, and Blackreach lies beyond. But without Septimus you cannot jump beneath the deadly rock.” He turned back towards them, nodded several times, then went over to a desk and started pawing through miscellaneous objects, talking to himself all the while.

He came back over to Alexien and Serana, and handed them two objects. “One block raises another,” he said again. He tapped one of the items, a sphere made of Dwemer metal. “The round one, for tuning. Dwemer music is soft and subtle, and needed to open their cleverest gates. Without it you cannot pass, and cannot read the Scroll.” He tapped a small cube. “And the edged one, for inscribing. To us a hunk of metal, a library of knowing to the Dwemer. A lexicon, but empty, wordless. Find the Elder Scroll, the dome of the sky beneath the earth. The machinations will read the Scroll and lay its lore upon the cube. The Scroll you may keep, but to Septimus return the lexicon.”

“Okay,” said Serana. “The sphere opens the way to Blackreach and to the Scroll, and it operates some kind of mechanism that... writes something on the cube.”

Septimus nodded excitedly. “The deepest doors listen for singing; it plays the attitude of notes proper for opening. Can you not hear it? But to glimpse the world inside an Elder Scroll can damage eyes and ears and mind. But this bends the knowledge away and inside without harm. Place the lexicon into their contraption and focus the knowings.”

“Wait,” said Alexien, raising a hand. “Query: The Dwemer had a way of reading Elder Scrolls directly?”

“Clever, clever, they found a loophole in the laws, too weak to provoke the strong all-sight of the Scrolls. They look left and right at once, and sometimes up – but ah, what if one dives up into them from the madness below?”

“And it still works? Meaning, we could use it ourselves, to read _any_ Elder Scroll?”

Septimus shook his head. “The machinations live still though their creators be here and not here, but children of Nirn cannot untwist the secrets.”

“Then...?”

Septimus, in annoyed impatience, tapped the sphere. “The round one, for tuning! It attunes the mechanism, and the Scroll and the lexicon sing alike. But the Scroll sings only the notes sung into it by the sphere. It knows them all, but left alone chooses silence.”

Alexien blinked.

“I think he means,” said Serana, “that the ‘mechanism’ only extracts from the Scroll the specific knowledge that this sphere... tells it to?” She looked at Septimus. “Because the sphere contains... instructions, I guess?”

“Yes yes, the round one, for tuning! It is written with the notes that the Scroll must sing.”

“Okay,” said Alexien, “I follow.” He turned the attunement sphere over in his hands. “But can we change the instructions, if we want to extract different knowledge or use the mechanism on a different scroll?”

At that, Septimus looked... uncomfortable. “One could,” he said, “but three cannot. This sphere was given to Septimus, and he cannot straighten its curves or bend its edges.”

Serana looked at him sharply. “Who gave it to you?”

“When?”

“Who gave you the sphere?”

Septimus blinked. “The round one is for tuning,” he said, as if explaining something to a very slow toddler, “and the edged one is for inscribing.”

“But where did you –”

And suddenly, in the middle of Serana's sentence, everything went black.

Alexien was standing in utter darkness. In blind panic, he reached out a hand to where Serana had been standing – nothing. He cast a light – it illuminated nothing but darkness made visible. He turned in every direction, but there was nothing to hear or see or feel.

No: there was a greenish haze-light in one direction. He focused on it, but it faded; yet somehow in fading it became easier to see. It coalesced slowly into an orb, and then the orb opened. It was an eye.

A voice spoke to him, fathomless as the depth of the sea, and it spoke _inside_ him. **“I greet you, little mageling. I welcome you. Behold; bask in my presence.”**

Behind and around the eye there were _things_ , slithering half-seen in the eldritch light. Alexien thought they might be tentacles, and suddenly thought he knew Who was addressing him.

 **“Yes, little mageling,”** said the voice caressingly; **“You know me, do you not? For I am what you and all your kind seek.”**

“You are –” Alexien started. His tongue locked and would not pronounce the name; he answered instead with some of the Being's titles he recalled from reading. “You are the Lord of Hidden Knowledge, Master of Secret Fate.”

The voice sounded pleased. **“I am,”** it said, **“riddle unsolvable, book unreadable, question unanswerable. I am the Wisdom of Infinity, the Unopened Scroll, the Timeless. I am Hermaeus Mora,”** and the darkness all around somehow resonated with that dread name, **“and I have been watching you, my seeker.”**

Slow panic, heavy and poisonous, writhed in Alexien’s chest and in his stomach. But still curiosity was stronger. “How... how are you doing this? I did not summon you.”

**“This secret, and all secrets, I can teach you. All that you desire to learn, you can learn from Me. But now, mortal, you are seeing only an echo of my glory, hearing only a reflection of my splendor. The time is not yet.”**

Alexien bowed his head. His rational brain began to catch up with him again. The great Daedric Lords were all but gods, but even so had limits. Even the Lord of Fate could not bind him except by some agreement. The Daedra had consented to be banished from Mundus unless summoned or bargained with; and Hermaeus Mora at least was known to keep to his pledges. Technically.

But Alexien would have to be careful here, careful well beyond ordinary paranoia.

And yet... and yet he stood before a god, a being from before time and outside space, who had been ancient at the Beginning and would still be young at the End. Even in his fear there was awe.

“Your power, o Knower of the Unknown,” he said carefully, “and your wisdom, o Master of the Tides of Fate, I respect and honor. But please be not offended with me, a humble student, if I say that I do not desire to make any deals or compacts with you.”

He expected rage. What he heard was worse: _laughter,_ if it could be called that; a world-shaking, mind-shredding laughter, without any humor to it; a laughter that he did not hear but felt, felt in his bones and in his brain and in his soul.

 **“That matters not.** **That day will come, little mageling, when the well of my knowledge will sate your thirst, and yet make you crave ever more.”** The eye somehow seemed to draw closer, to lean in towards him. **“** **For** **I know what you are. I have heard the music of the strings of your fate.”**

Alexien forced himself not to turn and run. “Then why, if I may know, o Lord of Secrets, do you address me now?”

 **“You will learn in time,”** crooned the voice. **“That sliver of my limitless mind, you shall come to know. This day I only offer a gift. A free gift I offer you, unrequited, unbound; from all claim of recompense and return I release you. You are curious, are you not? You are yearning to know?”**

He was. But he dared say nothing, only bowed his head. That awful, mind-shredding laughter was his answer.

“Lord of Fate and Knowledge” – Alexien forced the words out – “I neither agree to a contract with you, nor will I accept a free gift from your hands.”

 **"You** **are wise and cautious; the choosing was well. But you imagine that I am as a summoned Daedroth, and that if you accept a gift I will be loosed from your power. But I am not as a Daedroth, mortal; and you did not summon me; and I never was in your power.”**

Alexien said nothing. The sense of that awful presence drew closer around him, seemed to press in on him from all sides.

 **“Accept, or do not accept,”** said the voice, almost in his ear. **“** **T** **o me,** **today,** **it matters nothing. But I see you, mortal. Septimus' use will soon be at an end. With your help he will open the box. What is inside is yours,** **and** **y** **ou** **will** **use it as you see fit.** **For now, t** **hat is all that I desire** **of** **you; I make no other compact with you, I claim no other right in or over you. But** **you will return to me before the end,** **my seeker** **.** **I am Hermaeus Mora – and I am patient.”**

Before he could think what to answer, the darkness was gone, and he was suddenly standing again before Serana and Septimus.

As if no time at all had passed, Serana finished her question: “– _get_ the round one?” She finished speaking; but before she got to the end, within an instant of Alexien's return, her gaze shifted to him, and he could recognize concern in her eyes. What had she seen?

Septimus answered; he seemed to be giving them some incomprehensible instructions. Alexien couldn’t pay attention: his heart was racing, and his eyes were locked on Serana, desperate, as if he could grasp her with a look, pull her close, cling to her like a lifeline. Serana nodded at Septimus, but her gaze never left Alexien.

Some time later they found themselves outside. The wind still bit with a reassuringly _real_ coldness. Alexien pulled his hood over his face, but he felt Serana catch his arm, gentle but irresistible.

“What was that?”

“What?”

She let go his arm. “Your heart was suddenly racing like you'd just run all the way from Markarth.”

He looked at her, filled with relief and gratitude, and... said nothing.

“Hey,” she said softly, “it's just me. I'm worried about you. You know you can tell me, right?”

“I... can't.”

She stared a moment. “All right,” she said, doubtfully.

“I can't.”

Serana was quiet. After a moment she nodded, pulled her hood up over her face, turned away, and started walking.

“No, Serana, wait,” and he ran up beside her, his heart pounding again. “I mean it. I literally can't. I have words, but my tongue won't say them.”

Serana gave him a searching look. “Well, that’s... probably not good.”

“I absolutely agree.”

“Are you in danger?”

Alexien laughed. “Oh yes.”

“Immediate danger?”

He thought a moment. “I don’t think so. More long-term.”

She nodded. “Am I?”

“I... no more than you already were, I think. But be careful.”

“It’s not me I’m mainly worried about right now,” said Serana. Alexien felt her aura expand and flow over him, felt her eyes boring into him, searching. She frowned.

“I want to look you over later, if you’ll let me,” she said.

“Of course.”

“Not ‘of course.’ If something’s influencing your mind, preventing you from talking about certain things, it could react strongly if I try to look inside you. It could be... unpleasant.”

Alexien nodded. “I understand, and I accept the risk. It must be done.”

Serana watched him silently for a moment. “Is there anything you _can_ say? Did you see something?”

“I...” Alexien tried several thoughts. “I was there and suddenly not there,” he finally said. “In sight and in hearing.” A look passed over his face, and he grimaced. “Oblivion, I’m starting to sound like Septimus.”

“It’s my fault for pushing,” said Serana. “Let’s just... put it out of our minds for now.”

Alexien nodded, and they turned and started the trek back to the mainland.

“So,” Serana asked, as if casually, “what do you think’s in the box?”

“If it’s what I think it is,” said Alexien, “it should damn well stay there.”

But secretly, part of him hoped.


	13. Into the Depths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm back. This chapter isn't what I wanted it to be, but it's not getting any better from me staring at it.

They returned to the mainland. Serana suggested that they stop for the night at the College, but Alexien shook his head. They were so close on the trail of an Elder Scroll, and he didn’t want to risk being delayed.

At least, that was his ostensible reason. He was also worried that one of the other wizards might sense the Daedric influence on him, might guess something of what was in his mind, might try to stop them: stop them from going to Blackreach, stop them from using the attunement sphere, stop them from – from loosing whatever was in the Dwemer lockbox.

Alexien shook his head. That _wasn’t_ their goal, he told himself firmly. He almost believed it.

They camped overnight in the mountains near Winterhold. Serana sat Alexien down on the ground none too gently, then took a seat in front of him.

“Look at me,” she said.

He looked up into Serana’s bright amber eyes and lost himself in them. He could feel her searching through his mind, but he made no resistance.

“Well, your will hasn’t been tampered with, at least,” Serana muttered after a while. “Can you try telling me what happened?”

Alexien tried. After a minute he just shook his head.

“Interesting. I didn’t feel anything particularly odd then. Just... blankness. Like there was no content to your thoughts at all.”

“And... what does that mean?”

“Oblivion if I know,” said Serana, frowning. “I’ve never encountered anything like that before. It’s nothing like if a vampire had been messing around in your mind.”

“No, I’m sure it’s quite a lot worse than that,” said Alexien.

“And...” Serana hesitated. “You’re sure we’re not in any immediate danger?”

“Not immediate, no.”

“Do you think it’s anything related to the Elder Scrolls, or maybe some kind of magical effect or curse? Could Septimus have done something?”

“No, no, and no,” said Alexien. “Hey, at least I can say no.”

“Great, all I have to do is go through the list of everything that exists in this and every world, and we’ll be able to narrow it down.”

“You’re immortal, you have time.”

“You aren’t and don’t.” Serana bit her lip. “Are you all right? Can I do anything?”

“To be honest, I would describe my level of anxiety about the future as ‘rather above average,’” said Alexien. Then he smiled. “But you _are_ doing something. It... it helps that you’re just here.”

“Well... everything’s fine, then,” said Serana. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

They said nothing more for a while, but sat close together. Alexien took out a book about the Dwemer and read, and Serana watched him in that inhumanly still manner that he would once have considered creepy. Now it was almost comforting. Almost.

After some time, Alexien carefully marked the page he was on and closed his book. “By the way,” he said, “there actually was one other thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

Serana nodded.

“I know you’re going to fight me on this. But I’d like to rest tomorrow, and then set out again at night.”

“Why?”

“Because night is a lot less uncomfortable for me than day is for you.”

Serana opened her mouth to argue, but closed it again. He wasn’t wrong. She hated the idea of anyone, even – or perhaps especially – him, going out of their way to accommodate her. It was a thoughtful gesture, certainly, and she appreciated it; but somehow that only made it worse.

And yet he had a point.

“It’s not easy for humans to switch like that,” she said. “You’ll be exhausted the first night. And besides, I thought we were trying to hurry?”

Alexien sat up straighter, readying himself for the argument, and started counting off reasons on his fingers. “Trying to hurry actually supports my argument: it’s still winter, so the night is longer than the day anyway, and we can probably move faster by darkness” – meaning, Serana could probably move faster by darkness. “Yes, it’ll be hard for me to adjust, but we’re going to be spending quite a while underground in the near future anyway, and I might as well get used to living without the sun. Besides, if I’m spending time with a vampire, I should at least be _able_ to be active at night when necessary. And yes, I’ll be tired, but not as much if we spend tomorrow resting, as I suggested. And in any event I’ll just rely on you to keep me entertained and awake.”

Serana rolled her eyes, but the effect was somewhat ruined by her smile. “Really? _This_ is the thing you decide to be stubborn about?”

“Annoying, right?”

She threw up her arms. “Fine, fine, I guess I’ll just have to suffer through you being all thoughtful and considerate.”

“No other alternative, I’m afraid. I would apologize, but I don’t actually feel guilty and can’t pretend that I’m not going to repeat my offense with some frequency in the future.”

“You’re awfully obstinate for a thrall, you know.”

Alexien shrugged and reopened his book. “Then do a better job of enthralling me next time.”

Serana laughed; then she sat back, smiling to herself.

* * *

The next day, as planned, they stayed near the campsite and did nothing too strenuous. Serana tried to argue Alexien out of his position, but he rolled his eyes and went back to reading up on the Dwemer. Finally she gave up, pretended to be annoyed (though she could tell he didn't believe it), and opened a book for herself.

The rest of the morning and afternoon they spent in other light activities. They talked a great deal. Alexien wanted to practice his mental defenses again, and was confident he could throw back Serana's attack this time. He didn't. But she did say he was doing better. In return she asked him to show her the shield spell he always used.

Otherwise they bantered and joked, and listened to the whisper of the wind in the trees, the gentle murmur of a nearby mountain steam, the steady _drip-drip-drip_ of snowmelt under a winter sun.

It was… peaceful. Serana reflected what a shame it was that the dark and terrible parts of her adventures with Alexien could fill volumes, whereas there was little to say about the quiet happiness of moments like this, of calm and tranquillity, of time spent doing nothing in particular with someone you care for.

She sat up. Cared for? When did that – but she looked over at Alexien quietly reading his book, and realized it was true. She did care for him.

That… presented problems.

Problems, and unacceptable risks.

She started to wonder how Alexien felt, whether he – but then she sternly reminded herself, _It doesn't matter._ Continuing down that line of thought would only get one of them hurt.

Or, more likely, both of them.

And yet, she couldn't deny how precious it was to her just to be with so good a friend, with someone who seemed to enjoy her company as much as she enjoyed his, who was willing – little though she sometimes understood it – to accept her, and everything she was, as herself. It was a new experience, honestly; but it was one she hoped might continue for some time.

* * *

They set out again in the evening twilight, just before true nightfall. The sky was clear, and the moon bright enough that even Alexien could walk comfortably without casting a light. So they marched on in silence beneath a forest of fir and pine, and the snow crunched pleasantly under their feet.

Suddenly Serana stopped. “Wait,” she said to Alexien; “I heard something.”

Alexien listened, but didn’t hear anything. He started to cast a Detect Life spell, when a voice called out from the trees to the left of the path:

“Well now, what have we here?”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” muttered Alexien.

Six figures – five Nords and one Bosmer – emerged from the trees, wearing the miscellaneous assortment of mismatched leather and iron armor one only saw on professional bandits. The Bosmer carried a bow and stood back some distance; the others broke off, three by two, and moved to surround Alexien and Serana.

“These woods are dangerous, travelers,” said one, the biggest and most brutish of the lot, and evidently therefore their leader. He stood in front of Alexien flanked by two of the others. “It’s good we found you. We can offer you protection.” He thumbed the edge of his battleaxe and grinned. “For a price.”

Serana raised an eyebrow at Alexien.

“Back away. Now,” said Alexien. “You can’t even begin to fathom how monumentally bad an idea this is. I mean that literally. Generations to come will build a monument here, and they’ll dedicate it as a shrine to Sheogorath and marvel at your insanity.”

“A talker,” the big bandit grinned wider. “Talkers are harder to protect. People like killing ‘em. That makes the price go up. A thousand septims.”

"Look here. Look carefully, and then decide if you're quite sure want to do this." Alexien gestured at his robes and the sword at his side, then at Serana, who had gone unnaturally still and looked… well, if she had looked at _him_ that way, he would already have been running in the other direction. "Do we look like simple travelers to you?"

The bandit shrugged. "Students from Winterhold have been known to go _missing_ in these woods from time to time. Probably the ones that didn’t want to pay for protection." He glanced at Serana. "Or we can always take your lady friend here. We'll keep her nice and safe for you, don't you worry."

"So, Alexien – I'm not sure whether you know this about me or not," said Serana, "but I'm usually only interested in men with intelligence, class, and a sense of self-preservation; and I'm sorry, but this lot just don't quite measure up to my exacting standards."

The leader motioned to two of the others, who pulled out manacles and approached Serana. “A smart-ass,” he said to Alexien. “People don’t like that in a woman. We’ll have to teach her some manners.”

"Wait," said Alexien, ignoring the bandits in front of him to half-turn towards Serana. Beneath the casual façade she sensed him gathering power. "A sense of self-preservation? Why are you with me, then?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes I have to settle."

All at once Alexien spun towards the closest bandit and threw a hand forward; there was a flash of lightning and a (very intentionally loud) crack of thunder, and the man was blasted off his feet before the echoes had died away. The five remaining bandits jumped, and turned to face Alexien in some alarm; but they recovered soon enough, and the leader hefted his battleaxe and advanced on him menacingly.

And then the screaming started.

The big bandit spun around towards Serana. His two men were still standing – but something was wrong. Where had all that blood come from? Their throats – something had ripped through them like wet paper, red and oozing. But they should be dead. They shouldn’t be standing with wounds like that. Then Serana pointed, and he saw their empty eyes turn towards him, and he understood.

Alexien, the second he felt that cold, slithering power radiating off Serana, cast fire at the bandit in front of him. But the brute hadn’t come to lead a band of marauders by being slow in combat, and he leapt aside nimbly, refocused on Alexien, swung his axe.

He was tackled by the corpses of his former allies. Alexien didn’t want to see what they did to him, and turned his eyes away. He wished he could have chosen not to hear as well.

The Bosmer was drawing on Serana, but in panic he shot too quickly and the arrow went high, and a second later he took both a shard of ice and a bolt of lightning to the chest simultaneously. Alexien couldn’t remember afterwards which had been cast by Serana and which by himself, or if indeed, in the panic-anger of battle, he had thrown both.

One more, crouching behind a shield. He knew what he was doing; maybe a former Imperial soldier, Alexien thought. He stepped forwards, covering himself with the shield the whole time, and his sword swept out in one smooth arc and took the head off one of Serana’s minions. The other battered ineffectively on his shield, and a second later took a blade through its heart.

The bandit grinned. He actually thought he was going to make it out of this.

That thought burned in Alexien. This deserter, thief, murderer, waylaid them, assaulted them, sought to butcher them like gods knew how many he had butchered before – and dared to imagine that he might stand against them and survive. Suddenly Alexien didn’t just want to see him die; he wanted to see him _grovel._

Alexien extended a hand, paused for a moment to remember his training in Illusion with Serana, all he had learned about the mind from her; then he sent forth a surge of will, invaded the bandit’s thoughts, and filled them with horror.

The grin faded, his face fell from resolve to confusion, from confusion to terror; shield and sword dropped from hands that no longer remembered to grip them; eyes darted left and right, and sought for refuge; but his feet would not obey his panic, and he dared not stand, and dared not move.

And then Serana was on him; she threw him to the ground and leaned in over his throat, fangs startlingly white –

“Wait!” Alexien called reflexively.

Serana turned and looked back at him. Her eyes gleamed unnaturally bright.

Suddenly the adrenaline of combat was gone, and Alexien stood in a silent clearing amid crimson-stained snow, the moon bright overhead; and he was breathing hard, and sickened at himself.

“Just... look at him,” he said. “He’s done. He’s a broken man. We don’t have to kill him.”

Serana stared. “You know what he is. What they would have done to us. And yes, he’s broken. So broken letting me kill him quickly would be a mercy. Nicely done with that, by the way.”

Frustration and guilt surged up. Why _had_ he opted for a fear-spell at that moment? And worse: he had taken what he had learned from _her,_ what _she_ had taught him to protect himself, and used it as a weapon, used it to batter down another human’s psyche. “Yeah, just... please,” he said. “As a favor to me.”

Serana still stared at him; on her face was bewilderment, and... hurt? “Alexien, I still need to eat. If not him, I’ll have to find someone else.”

“I know,” said Alexien, voice tight. “And that’s fair. But you usually don’t kill when you feed anyway, right? That’s all I’m asking.”

She looked at him in some confusion for a moment. Was that disappointment in her eyes? Remorse? Something else he couldn’t begin to guess? “All right,” she said, in an odd voice. “You... you may want to look away, though.”

He blinked. “Okay. I’ll... be up ahead, then.”

A few minutes later Serana walked up beside him. Without saying anything, they turned and continued on their way.

* * *

“Can we talk?” Serana asked flatly. They had made camp a little before dawn. She was sitting by the new fire, hunched forward, unmoving. She did not look at him.

“Yes,” Alexien said slowly. “Of course.”

She continued not looking at him. “I just...” She took a deep breath. “I just thought you were all right with... with me.”

“I am,” he said, confused.

“You’ve always known what I am,” she went on, her tone relentlessly level. “I’ve never hidden that from you. I’ve never pretended to be something I’m not.”

“I know. And I’m grateful for that.”

Finally she looked at him. “Then why did you freak out at me when I was going to feed? I know I’ve never done it in front of you, but I thought... we were okay. I thought I could be... well, open around you.”

“Serana,” he said, and he sounded stricken. “That’s not what that was about.”

“I’m a vampire, Alexien. I’m always going to be a vampire. What, did you think you’d find me a cure, save me from this? I don’t need a cure. I don’t need saving.”

“Serana,” he said again, in a choked voice. “I swear, that’s not what that was about. I don’t care what you are; it doesn’t bother me. That was just... my own problem.”

She kept staring. Did her gaze soften a bit, or was he imagining it? “What was it, then?” she asked.

He stood facing her, silent, a long moment. “I’ve...” he started, and stopped. She watched him but didn’t help. After another moment, he asked, “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

For a second, he was afraid she might refuse, but finally she nodded and made room for him. He sat with almost visibly painful relief. But he didn’t speak for a while, until she asked, in a voice only marginally more gentle, “Well?”

“I’ve... look, I know what you’re going to say to this, but I’ve done a lot I’m not proud of. My hands aren’t particularly clean, and I haven’t always used my magic as I could wish I had done. And... earlier, that was just one more example of that.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said Alexien, slowly and deliberately, “that bandit – I used Illusion, instead of just killing him outright, because I wanted to _break_ him. I saw the hope and defiance on his face, and I wanted to crush it. I wanted him to cower before he died. And I got what I wanted. Only then I didn’t want it anymore.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t anything to do with you. And I’m sorry for making you think that.”

Serana’s eyes still stared into his, her gaze steady and unblinking. Finally she looked away. “You did, though.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. It’s okay.” She fell silent for a moment, then looked up at Alexien and shook her head. “You’re still most emphatically _not_ a monster, though. I would know.”

“You’re not –”

“I’ve killed,” she said, as if she were reciting a litany, “and I’ve enjoyed it. I told you that the first night we met.”

Alexien didn’t respond to that, and they sat watching the fire for a while. “Do you want to talk about it?” he finally asked.

“Not really, no,” Serana said. “But also yes, desperately.” She shook her head again, but continued anyway: “You just – it forcefully reminded me that you’re human, and I’m a vampire. And that... sent me to a pretty dark place, if I’m being honest. But that’s not your fault.”

She didn’t feel any need to add what she was thinking: That she had just been getting used to the idea of him accepting her, had just realized she had... _feelings_ for him, and that this was one of those unacceptable risks she had tried to warn herself about.

Alexien just nodded, without saying anything, hoping she understood what he meant: _You can say more, if you want to._

After a few seconds, she turned towards him with a faint smile. “First off,” she said, “I want to emphasize, again, that I think you’re absolutely ridiculous and absurd when you get all moody and start feeling guilty. It’s kind of sweet, on you, but completely laughable.” Her smile faded. “I... know what you mean, though. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, either. There have been things I wanted to stop, but I let them happen. And there have been people I wanted to save, but I... but I killed them. Or at least brought about their deaths.” She swallowed, and forced the words out: “And you could be next. You know it as well as I do, or you’re a fool. I’m a danger as long as I’m with you.”

“I don’t believe that,” Alexien said firmly. “Serana, you’re... kind. Don’t get me wrong, you can be terrifying as all Oblivion and I never ever want to earn a place on your enemies list. But I’m not afraid of you. Not anymore.”

They were silent a while, just sat together beside the fire.

“Are you really worried about that?” he asked suddenly. “That you’ll hurt me, I mean.”

“I... sometimes, yeah. I don’t want to. Only I _do_ want to. It’s worse when I haven’t eaten for a few days, or when we’re...” She hesitated. “When we’re close like this. For my kind, it’s hard to separate... certain feelings, certain sensations, from the hunger. Friendship with mortals usually doesn’t end well.”

Alexien shook his head. After a minute, Serana started speaking again, in a voice barely audible above the wind: “I’ve never told anyone this story. But you asked me once what Malkus had done to make me hate him so much. And I assume you’ve wondered what exactly I have against my father – besides the obvious, I mean. Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Anything you’re willing to tell me,” he said, “I want to hear.”

Serana nodded, a gesture of thanks, and took a deep breath. “So,” she began, “this happened a long time ago. I’d been – well, it was about a century after I became a vampire. And the castle was settling into a routine. My father... he’d never exactly been close, but he only grew more distant. He had his court of adoring sycophants, what did he need with a daughter? I spent a lot of time with my mother, but even we didn’t really _do_ anything together. I just tagged along to whatever she was doing, and she didn’t shoo me away, and let me learn alchemy or necromancy from watching her. Or at least that’s how I remember it. I’m probably being unfair to both of them. Maybe I was the distant daughter.”

Alexien shook his head quietly.

She continued: “Anyway, this isn’t a story about that. Just background. You have to understand, the castle was lonely. And the more acolytes and followers around, the lonelier it was. I didn’t really have any friends among them; to them I was just Harkon’s daughter. Ugh,” she grimaced, “I sound like a self-centered ass, don’t I?”

“Not to me.”

She gave him a grateful smile. “So. I spent a lot of time alone. It was happier, that way. I stayed in the library and read books I’d read a hundred times before, or wandered the basements and played at being in the stories I’d been reading, or made up my own, and imagined what my favorite characters would say to me, or I to them. But really I just wanted to meet someone who’d accept me as, well, me: not fawn over me because of who my father was, not shun me because of what I was. And to see anything at all in the whole world outside the damn castle.”

“Could you ever go to the mainland?”

“Not officially. My father didn’t allow it. It was _dangerous_ – and, more importantly, it was beneath people of our station. If we needed anything, he would send someone to fetch it for us. But I was never a very obedient daughter, since... anyway, I figured out how to make the trip and not be seen, so I went a few times. I never even made it as far as Solitude, but in those days there were some fishing villages and even a town on the coast, and I visited those.”

Alexien remembered that dreary coast, the ice-covered beaches under a neverending grey sky, the freezing salt-air. He must have made a face, because Serana continued:

“I know, it wasn’t exactly seeing the wonderful sights of Tamriel. But to me it was the breath of life. I started trying to mix in with the people. Just be another anonymous member of the crowd. Pure-blood vampires look almost human, you know, and none of these people were learned enough to recognize even a normal vampire, so it wasn’t very difficult.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It was, for a while. There was a little village along the coast that I visited and kept coming back to. There was a girl there, about my age – or how old I had been, before... – her name was Kudrin. Stereotypical Nord, tall and blonde and loved to fight, but she was a nice girl. We became friends, I think. I came every week or so and talked with her. You know, the Nords of those times had a practice they called _flytingahild_ _,_ sort of a ritualized duel where the contenders, whenever they swung their swords at each other, had to chant formal insults at their opponents, in verse, made up on the spot; then afterwards they’d go feast together and repeat the verses and laugh about it all.”

“Good to know the Nords haven’t changed much,” said Alexien, with a laugh.

Serana grinned. “Kudrin was good at it, too. People came from the neighboring villages to watch her bouts. She wanted to be a Companion, go win glory for herself and her family, sing her own poetry as she went into battle. Be remembered as a hero. I trained with her sometimes. I was a lot faster than she was, of course, but my insults weren’t quite witty enough for the sophisticated taste of the local peasants, and she was more skilled with a sword. She probably could have done it, gone and joined the Companions. Maybe there would still be songs about her.”

She paused, and after a few seconds Alexien asked, “What happened?”

“This... is where everything goes bad,” Serana said slowly. “I’d been visiting for about a year. Her family acted like I was a distant cousin or something; I don’t know what they really thought I was, but they were welcoming. So. Kudrin had an older brother. You know, I can’t even remember his name? He was a big strong brute of a Nord, but kind of handsome, and surprisingly soft-spoken. He was always inviting me to have dinner with his family. I wished I could have.” She stared off in silence for a minute, then shook her head and continued: “Well, regardless, one day he caught me alone, and he pushed me up against a wall and started kissing me. I didn’t mind. I _really_ didn’t mind. But... the next thing I knew, I had _him_ pushed up against the wall, and my teeth were in his throat.”

Alexien flinched.

“And that’s how his sister found us. I was covered in blood. Even she knew what I was then. He wasn’t seriously hurt, I hadn’t taken much,” Serana said defensively, “but she screamed and screamed and screamed at me. I... don’t remember what she said.” That was a lie, but she pushed the memories away. “I tried to apologize. I think I... I said I was sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, I’d never do it again. She didn’t listen. There was so much raw horror and disgust in her face I wouldn’t have recognized her. I ran. The whole village came out, and Kudrin screamed that I was a vampire. And all those kind people who had been so kind, so welcoming to a strange friendless girl who showed up alone on their doorstep one day, they all threw rocks at me and chased me into the woods.”

“That’s...”

“I made it back to the castle. I don’t remember how. One of the maids found me crying – I was always closer with them than with the _important_ vassals my father kept around – and I told her what had happened. She told... well, she told Malkus. And Malkus told my father. When I got up that evening, the castle was empty. I paced around aimlessly, not knowing where everyone was, but worrying all the while. With good reason, it turned out. Just before dawn, my father came back with a group of his warriors, armed for battle. Battle,” she spat, and shook her head with disgust. “Massacre. They’d gone to the village and killed everyone. Every last person. Because of me. And my father brought me back Kudrin’s head. He seemed to think he was doing something nice for his daughter, avenging her on her enemies. And...” she swallowed, and went on: “And Malkus brought back Kudrin’s brother. As a thrall. And fed on him every night until he died, right in front of me in the great hall, as my father looked on to see how I would react.”

There was nothing to say to that, and silence fell between them. Alexien stared into the fire without really seeing it. He was horrified – but not, he realized, at Serana. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Okay, yes, maybe losing control and biting open someone’s throat wasn’t quite exemplary; but she had some excuse in her heartache beforehand, and afterwards she had suffered more than enough in atonement.

And once again Harkon had only made everything worse for her. Alexien silently vowed that he would see Harkon blasted to the Void, even if he had to die to do it.

He suddenly realized he hadn’t said anything since Serana finished speaking. She might think he was upset or – or disappointed at her. He looked over, and found her unmoving, hunched over and staring into the fire, exactly as before. Hesitantly, tentatively, he reached out a hand and rested it on her shoulder, then wrapped an arm around her.

She jumped, but didn’t pull away. Her face turned towards him quizzically.

“You’re not...?” she started.

“No,” he said.

Serana’s eyes flitted over his face, then after a moment she relaxed against him, and let her head fall on his shoulder.

Risks be damned.

* * *

“Well, this is charming,” said Serana. “You take me to all the nicest places.”

Alexien shrugged. “You said you wanted to see Tamriel. I regret to inform you that Skyrim is part of Tamriel. And a lot of Skyrim looks like... this.”

They had arrived at Alftand, where Septimus (if they had even understood him correctly) had told them they would find an entrance to Blackreach. It was only faintly recognizable as a Dwemer site. Scattered turrets struggled to rise above the snow drifts; it was impossible to tell if they had been built into the glacial ice beneath, or if the ice had grown up around them over the ages from century after century of compacted snow, ever falling but never melting on the frozen mountain heights. The very sun hardly pierced the halo of cloud permanently drawn around the peaks above, leaving everything only faintly visible, distorted by the cold haze.

Alexien thought fondly of, of all places, Morthal, and desperately hoped that the next Elder Scroll would lie somewhere in the south of Skyrim. Maybe Serana would enjoy seeing the woods around Falkreath with him?

He shook his head, and took a closer look. Around some of the stone turrets was the abandoned detritus of previous expeditions: collapsed tents and broken shacks, the forlorn remains of campfires dug into the ice, jagged timbers lying in disordered heaps, stark and ugly against the pure white. Some of it looked recent. A few canvas packs lay here and there, tossed aside and torn apart, their contents strewn across the snow like a wound.

“I smell blood,” said Serana quietly.

“Of course,” said Alexien. “Because why wouldn’t this be complicated?”

He cast Detect Life. Nothing. He cast Detect Undead. Again, nothing (other than Serana beside him). But he knew that Dwemer machineries were not visible to any spell known at the College, and was not comforted.

And deeper down would be the Falmer, still too far off to sense, but undoubtedly there, blind and malevolent and patient in the darkness beneath them.

“There seems to be an entrance over there,” he said, pointing. Serana nodded. He could feel her tension even from a few feet away, her body stiff and taut, her aura writhing with power, and knew she was as uncomfortable as he was.

“According to Sorine’s notes it should at least be warmer inside,” he added, in a tone of forced normalcy. “As long as the steam ducts are still active.”

Serana nodded again. They walked forwards together and found a tunnel opening, and stepped inside. At once the noise of the wind died away. They stared down a long passageway cut into the ice, disappearing into darkness twenty or thirty paces ahead of them. Dwemer architecture was visible now and then in the walls. From ahead and below they could hear a rhythmic _clud-thunk,_ repeated over and over again with hypnotic regularity.

There was a sharp metallic taste on the air, copper and iron and something else Alexien couldn’t place, oily and alien. He glanced at Serana, who shook her head.

“Right,” he said, fidgeting with the sleeves of his robes to make sure his hands were free. “Ready for this?”

“Absolutely not,” said Serana. “But when has that stopped us before?”

Alexien snorted, then fell silent. “Right,” he said again, and took a few steps forward. Serana followed. The sound of their feet echoed strangely down the corridor, somehow in bizarre harmony with the pulsing rhythm of forgotten machinery below.


	14. Dwemer Inquiries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to make this and Blackreach one huge chapter... but decided to split it into two medium-sized ones.

They planned everything out with the utmost care.

They were going to be descending down through Dwemer ruins no one knew how deep, without any possibility of resupply or rescue from the surface for no one knew how long. No one had ever been to Blackreach (and survived to tell of it), and so they had no idea whatsoever what it would be like or what they would find there, or what were the principal dangers they would face.

Alexien, however, was not optimistic, and went about making plans and preparations with more than his usual paranoia.

First, most importantly and most boringly, was supplies: food and water for Alexien, and blood potions for Serana. Water was not as much of a concern: they were more likely to find it underground, and in an emergency they could both conjure sufficient amounts of it rather easily, as long as their magicka held out. But food might be a problem. When Serana asked, Alexien explained that, yes, he could create it, and create it from nothing if need be; but even if his focus were _perfect_ (which it never would be), he would only be exchanging a certain amount of magical energy for an exactly equivalent amount of corporeal energy, which would be useful only in a few very specific and very dire situations.

Alexien accordingly brought rations for two weeks, though it could be stretched to cover a slightly longer period – as long as they didn’t have to do any fighting at the end. Serana brought a number of blood potions for herself, but steadfastly refused to tell Alexien just how many she had or how long they would last (or just where she had acquired the necessary ingredients, which included, of course, human blood). Whenever he asked, she just said “Don’t worry about it” and made a joke about eating him.

They agreed, therefore, that if they had not found the Elder Scroll within ten days, and had found no other means of resupply underground, they would turn back and stretch their remaining stores to get them back to the surface, and then try again with more preparation. It wasn’t ideal, but it was as good a plan as they could make at first, knowing as little as they did.

Serana tried to appear optimistic, but Alexien guessed that their chances of a successful first attempt were about one-to-one.

Next was light. They both very much hoped (and pretended to each other that they didn’t both know it was a vain hope) that they might be able to sneak through without ever alerting anything to their presence. But Alexien absolutely required light, which significantly increased the risk of detection. At first he asked Serana to alter his eyes again, so that he could share her darkvision; but she explained, a little embarrassed, that it was difficult to do, didn’t last very long, and carried dangers of long-term side effects if she did it repeatedly. So they agreed that Alexien should normally cast a light for himself, and Serana would use her Illusion magic to hide them and the light from any prying eyes. If they ever needed to be especially stealthy, he would dismiss the light and she would enhance his eyesight to see in the dark, and they would both use Illusion to muffle their steps.

A similar concern was sound. The Falmer were known to be blind, but had correspondingly excellent hearing. Illusion could veil the sound of their footsteps well enough, but they would still have to be careful. In particular, they agreed that they should keep their talking to a minimum, speaking only when necessary, and that at a whisper.

For some reason, Alexien seemed unhappiest about this precaution, and tried to ignore how disappointed he was that he wouldn’t be able to converse as much with Serana. They prearranged a number of hand-signals, but it wasn’t the same at all. If he was being honest with himself (and he tried not to be), he already missed the sound of her voice.

But with these precautions, if everything went well, the whole journey would be uneventful, and nothing and no one would ever know they were there.

Not that either of them actually thought it would work out that way.

Finally, they tried to prepare for the very real and overwhelmingly likely possibility that they would have to fight, perhaps against crushingly difficult odds. No one knew how many Falmer and chauruses and Hermaeus Mora knew what other monstrosities (Alexien shuddered at the mention of that name) would be down in the depths of Blackreach; but many hundreds or even thousands did not seem improbable. Serana pointed out, very reasonably, that their goal was not to kill every wicked creature they might find underground, and that in the event of fighting their goal should be, first, if possible, to snuff out their opponents quickly and quietly before they could raise an alarm; and otherwise, second, to disengage, flee onwards, and try to delay pursuit. Serana would focus on the quick and quiet killing, and Alexien knew a number of sealing spells to block doors or passageways behind them.

In the unfortunate and all too probable event that they were embroiled in a serious battle, they discussed a number of scenarios and tactics for whatever type of enemy might be trying to kill, capture, or eat them. Ideally, they would press on and leave their enemies behind; if necessary, they would practice a fighting retreat, each in turn laying down spells to cover the other as they fled.

In all circumstances, their first priority was that at least one of them should reach the Elder Scroll; and they were to abandon that goal and refocus on escape if and only if it looked like _neither_ of them would live to acquire it. Alexien insisted on this point several times. Serana agreed, while silently swearing to herself that she would do no such thing: Alexien, at least, _would_ make it out alive.

She rather suspected he had made the same promise to himself about her, and couldn’t decide if she was more annoyed or touched.

No, that was a lie.

Touched. Damn him.

* * *

They paced down the corridor in silence. The only illumination was the conjured magelight hovering over Alexien’s shoulder, but it somehow made the darkness deeper: it had neither the intensity of sunlight nor the warmth of firelight, but glowed an unnatural blue-white, and it cast eerie, stretching shadows on the cavern walls. A short distance ahead of and behind them it faded into blackness, a malevolent, obtrusive blackness that seemed to press in upon them.

And always, always, there was that repetitive _clud-thunk_ echoing up from below, with an uncanny regularity unlike anything they knew from the natural world.

At first the passageway was mostly glacial, with occasional pieces of Dwemer machinery appearing in the walls or ceiling where their clockwork motion broke apart the ice or hidden steam currents melted a way through. Gradually these became more common, and the natural ice became less and less as they descended. The temperature grew warmer, whether from some inherent heat rising from inside the earth or because the Dwemer had made it so, they could not tell; and Alexien was forced to remove his winter cloak and hood.

The first night – when they assumed it was night – they camped in an alcove cut into the ice. The detritus of previous expeditions littered the floor. But all that day they had heard no sound, not the least hint of a sound, other than that mechanical rhythm that they could still feel sounding in their heads. When Alexien dismissed his light there was utter darkness, so impenetrable that even Serana could hardly see anything, and during her watch she relied more on hearing and smell. But there was nothing.

The second day they left the glacial caverns behind and came to the Dwemer ruins proper. The floors and ceiling were of natural stone, the walls of that strange bronze-colored alloy; but a confusing array of pipes and wheels, and other apparatus Alexien couldn’t name, snaked around the roof or stabbed up at them from the ground. Neither of them had other been inside a Dwemer site before, and would have loved to look around. Serana in particular seemed disposed to wander, and kept throwing the machinery curious glances. Alexien wished he had paper and charcoal, to take a rubbing of the molded designs on doors and walls. But whenever either of them stopped, the other looked around nervously, and gestured that they shouldn’t tarry.

Still they heard nothing. But still the repetitive background echo beat against their ears, unceasing, unvarying. And still they saw nothing except by the flickering magelight, at the all-too-near edges of which the darkness still pressed in on them.

Alexien frequently cast Detection spells, and found nothing each time. Once they passed a spot where dried blood covered the floor and one wall, blood that Serana immediately declared with a sign to be human. Alexien tried to do something with it, though Serana couldn’t tell what: he pulled out a piece of chalk and drew a circle around a spatter of red-brown droplets, and started tracing strange glyphs in the air over it.

Serana watched him curiously. She had learned that, although she probably had more raw power, Alexien was better than her at these technical applications of wizardry. But after a while he just lowered his hand, shook his head, and motioned for them to continue.

Gradually, as they paced their way through stone-hewn corridors, down metallic steps and up and down again, a sense grew on them of something... alien, in the architecture. Serana was the first to notice it, and tried to describe it to Alexien. Something about the proportions of the hallways and rooms, always too wide for their height or too tall for their depth; something about the edges of wall and ceiling, sharply angled where they expected curves or with sweeping curves where they expected right angles; something, something simply _wrong_ in the positioning of every door and every pillar – it all spoke to the design of an inhuman intelligence, an intelligence not necessarily superior to that of men or elves, but simply _different;_ the intelligence of a race to whom trees and sun and sky were foreign, whose mind worked on patterns of rock and cavern and secret darkness, unknown and unknowable to the creatures that scurried about on the surface above.

It was not necessarily hostile; but it was unwelcoming, and impressed Alexien and Serana with the feeling that they did not belong here, that this place was built in forgotten depths of time by beings who neither understood their thoughts, nor cared for their concerns.

After no great while, they realized they were lost. Neither had envisaged the sheer _scale_ of the ruins. Alexien had read that Dwemer outposts were comparable in size to entire cities on the surface, but he hadn’t been able to make himself realize what this meant: a dizzying maze of passages and chambers, sprawling out over an area at least as large as Solitude or Whiterun. As soon as he started to think of the hallways as streets and the rooms as buildings, the foolishness of his own expectations dawned on him. He had expected to follow an easy road _down,_ along a more or less linear pathway with perhaps a few scattered forks, but where the way was always obvious. But that was nonsense here. Wandering an unfamiliar city the size Solitude at random, in the hopes of just chancing upon one particular destination, would itself be madness. But the layout of the Dwemer city extended in all three dimensions, without any apparent logical schema; and often they realized that, after taking a stairway down, they had followed a gradual loop around and up and found themselves directly _above_ that original stairwell.

Serana was able to tell whether they had been down a particular passage or not by smell, and she helped guide them back to a location they recognized. After that, Alexien started marking the way they went with chalk – which, he reflected with annoyance, he _ought_ to have thought of doing from the beginning.

They spent several days – neither could tell exactly how many – that way, wandering through the Dwemer ruins. Several times they found other evidence of the previous expedition, sometimes in broken instruments or discarded supplies, but more often in fresh-looking blood stains. Each time they found blood, Alexien repeated the ritual with the chalk circle, but each time whatever he was trying to do failed. Finally, by gestures, he was able to convey that he was attempting to use the blood to determine whether the corresponding person was still alive or not, and if so, where they were.

Whenever they camped, they tried to set up in a location that felt secure, enclosed on at least three sides. Serana combed the area to make sure she could sense nothing dangerous, and Alexien carefully examined the walls before they relaxed – one of Sorine’s books had described how Dwemer automata could sometimes appear from apertures in seemingly solid walls, which he was anxious to avoid while they were sleeping.

Not that they slept much. The lack of any visible cycle of day and night was already playing havoc on Alexien’s nerves, and already he would find himself tired after only an hour or two of walking, or wide awake after a long and physically exhausting trek. Serana was always tense and jumpy. Dwemer ruins were supposed to be dangerous – and the blood stains testified that these certainly _were_ – but they had yet to see any trace of the automata that were supposed to be ubiquitous in sites like this. Surely that couldn’t be normal? But the constant expectation of danger, the unceasing vigilance against foes that were not there, gave both of them the anxious tension of a coiled spring.

And still, without ceasing, came the sound of machinery from below, in its unnatural, its eerie regularity, its rhythm that never sped up nor slowed down, that never came louder nor quieter, but went on, and had gone on, and would go on, for century after forgotten century.

Each time they set up a campsite, before going to sleep (or attempting to sleep), Alexien would take time to write at length in a notebook. Serana read over his shoulder and found he was describing their expedition, cataloging everything they had seen. She gave him a quizzical look, and he wrote on a blank page that he had promised to take notes for Sorine. Serana snatched the pen from his hands and wrote an answer. Thus they realized that, although they couldn’t speak, they could still write each other back and forth and communicate that way. Sharing jokes like that, exchanging sarcastic quips each night, became Alexien’s favorite part of the day; and often as they were exploring, when he knew his mind _should_ have been attentive to the potential danger of their surroundings, he found himself looking forward to when he could sit and write something, and pass paper and pen to Serana, and watch that charming half-smile spread over her face as she read, as she started to write him a reply.

He knew, when they were done here, that he should burn the record of their conversations. They were too private. But he didn’t think he would be able to. He found himself growing familiar with and fond of the very sight of her handwriting: her letters were sharp and angular, with sudden changes of direction, but still well-proportioned and graceful. She invariably wrote in full cursive, in an old-fashioned hand; but somehow, he thought, it fit her. He wondered what she thought of his own hasty and uneven lettering.

But whenever he passed her anything, she smiled as she reached out to take it from his hand.

* * *

They had been on a careful lookout for any sign of Dwemer automata. Even so, the first two that they saw managed to catch them off guard.

The room they were in had been some kind of workshop. It was large and open, with niches set deep into each wall, and tables both of stone and metal scattered around, organized according to some unknown logic. The workstations (for so they appeared to Alexien) and the floor around them had a profusion of tools, intricate and finely crafted of that strange alloy favored by the Dwemer. Alexien couldn’t even begin to guess the purpose of most of them.

The most noticeable feature, however, was a series of vertical pistons (he thought that was the word) along one wall. Most of these were still, but one remained in working order: it had a broad flat surface rather like an anvil, raised a few feet off the floor, where every ten seconds or so a matching metallic disc would slam down onto it from above, like a steam-driven blacksmith’s hammer.

Alexien was examining this carefully, trying to decide if it _was_ effectively a blacksmith’s hammer, meant for weapon crafting; or if it was perhaps an automated press, like a winepress back home, or perhaps a numismatic device for minting coins (did the Dwemer even use coinage?). Out of the corner of his eye he could see Serana standing some distance off, looking around the chamber to watch for trouble while he was distracted.

He turned his attention back to the device. Yes, the Dwemer had used coinage; he was sure he had read in some author about coins found in... Vvardenfell? It had been somewhere in Morrowind, certainly.

Suddenly Serana gave a cry of mixed surprise and pain, and Alexien spun to face her, sword already drawn, already channeling lightning in his left hand.

Serana had pitched forwards and stood bent over, one hand reaching back to cover a spot between her shoulder blades. But she recovered quickly, and leapt aside with inhuman reflexes just as a bolt of electricity shot through the air where she had been. Alexien looked towards the spot in the darkness where the attack had originated, and launched his own thunderbolt.

It missed, but for a brief moment the flash illuminated their enemy: it was a small reflective creature, metallic, with too many legs, legs that moved in odd jerks neither insectoid nor reptilian. It scurried towards them with surprising speed, with the angry sound of scraping metal and a hiss of steam. Something in the way it moved was unearthly, alien. _Spider,_ he thought – and at the same time, thought that it resembled a real spider only in the fevered nightmares of a skooma addict.

It launched itself straight at his face, faster than it had any right to be, and Alexien barely had time to raise a shield. It struck the barrier and recoiled. Alexien swung his blade down at its body; but the thing was made of solid metal, and the edge of his sword came away notched. A blast of ice from Serana knocked it aside, but it didn’t seem to feel the attack at all and reared back again to leap at Alexien.

He threw forward his left hand and sent a blast of pure kinetic force at it, which sent it spinning like a top across the floor, breaking off several of its legs. It tried to raise itself up again, but Serana conjured a block of ice right above it, and brought it crashing down.

Metal and ice grated, cracked, shattered, and for a second the room echoed with the noise of breaking. But the thing moved no more.

Serana turned from it to look at Alexien, and raised an eyebrow.

“Dwemer spider,” he said quietly, in a hoarse voice. “Famously tougher than they –”

Serana’s eyes widened, and Alexien cast a ward on reflex. Almost at the same time something struck him in the small of the back.

He was thrown onto his face, but found his legs and scrambled to his feet, and turned to look for Serana.

She was fighting hand-to-hand with what could only be a dwarven sphere guardian. But no illustration or description he had seen had ever conveyed the uncanny malice in their appearance. For Kynareth’s sake, the Dwemer had even bothered to give it a _face_ – or at least a sadist’s approximation of one. It was as tall as a tall man, and by contrast to the spider’s jerky motions it moved with a strange grace, smooth and almost water-like. But with every one of its graceful motions it intended death and dismemberment. Its long arms whirled and stabbed at Serana, and even she was only just swift enough to avoid the cruel-looking blades it bore in place of hands.

Alexien threw lightning at it, and scored a direct hit on its chest (for lack of a better term). It halted for a second as a tremor ran through its body, but it seemed to take no other damage and thrust again at Serana.

She ducked under its arm, seized it by the wrist, and with a lithe twisting motion threw it forwards, using its own momentum against it.

It spun awkwardly for a moment, but then collapsed into a ball and rolled, changed direction, and reemerged from its sphere, now aiming its blades at Alexien. He summoned a shield to absorb the attacks, then as the thing recoiled, pushed the barrier forwards into it, knocking it off balance.

It fell backwards but collapsed again into a sphere, rolled in a swift counterclockwise circle around Alexien, and emerged again behind him. Serana struck it with a thunderbolt, and it froze again as another involuntary shaking seized it, long enough for Alexien to spin around and hit it a third time with lightning.

But it had learned – by Oblivion, it had _learned_ – what their electrical attacks meant, and before it lost control it threw itself off balance forward into Alexien, slamming him backwards even as it shuddered from the lightning. When Alexien recovered it was already stabbing at his face again.

Serana crashed into it and flung it aside, but yet again it collapsed into a sphere, righted itself, and came back at them.

They were fighting on its terms, and it was adjusting to their attacks. So, time to try something different.

“Time!” shouted Alexien, and Serana nodded and leapt forwards, and engaged the thing again in hand-to-hand.

Alexien put that from his mind, and concentrated. _Fire. Let’s see how it likes fire._ But it was literally made of metal: it couldn’t burn, couldn’t feel the pain of burning; a simple jet of flame would just splatter against it and disperse without e ffect. But it could melt, if the fire were concentrated enough. Alexien took a deep breath, and touched his fury and panic – and he did not have to look deep to find them, when it was fighting with Serana right in front of him – and drew them up into his spell, and focused them, focused until they burned incandescent, until even in his mind the very _thought_ of the spell was blindingly bright. Then he threw both hands forward, and sent the magic streaming forth.

There was no firebolt, no visible jet of flame; but the air all around seemed to shimmer with heat, and Serana flinched back. The automaton was leaning forwards, its arm reaching out for her – when suddenly a white line spread over its forearm, a searing white that glowed, dazzling and radiant; and when the thing shrank back as if in pain, its arm came away at the line, and drops of liquefied metal spattered on the floor.

Serana hit it again with thunder before it could recover, and it shuddered as it crashed backwards; then she leapt for it, body-slammed it with her full strength, and again it was thrown back – right into that strange Dwemer anvil.

Alexien saw what Serana was planning. But it was too fast, it had already started to recover. He reached out for it, both hands stretching forwards again, and caught it in a telekinetic grip.

Gods above, it was _strong,_ and its raw physical might surged against his magic, and almost it broke free –

But not soon enough; and just when Alexien knew he could hold it no longer, the piston activated, and the metal press slammed down from above, and flattened the sphere against the anvil.

If Alexien and Serana thought that crushing the spider beneath a block of ice had been loud – if they thought that anything they had ever heard before was loud – they then realized their mistake. There was a sickening crunch of metal, a snapping and popping of rods and gears and gods knew what else, and the mechanical piston groaned in protest at the resistance; but above all, there was a deep, resonant, resounding _clang_ , that echoed all around the chamber and down every hall, that seemed to make the very walls and floor and ceiling shake and vibrate with it.

They both covered their ears. The reverberations slowly died away, and then the silence seemed quieter, emptier than before.

“Well,” said Serana after a moment, “there’s no point in not talking anymore.”

Alexien stared at her, and then laughed in relief as the tension left him. “No,” he said, “I guess there isn’t.”

Serana rolled her shoulders.

“Are you injured?” Alexien asked her.

“Annoyed,” she said, glaring at the broken automata. She glanced at Alexien. “What about you? You put a lot of energy in those spells. Like, a _lot_ a lot.”

“I’d... very much like to rest a bit before we move on, but I’m fine. Really,” he said with emphasis, as she gave him a suspicious look.

Serana nodded, and sank down to the floor and sat cross-legged, apparently entirely at ease. “Those blood stains we’ve been finding – do you think they were killed by these machines?”

“No,” said Alexien, “I think they were killed by Falmer. Automata don’t take bodies; Falmer do.”

Serana looked uncomfortable again, and shot a glance around all the entrances. The hallways _were_ awfully dark. “Great. I guess this was just a warm-up then, to keep us on our toes.”

Alexien didn’t answer, but went over to examine the remains of the animunculi. He pulled out a small empty glass bottle and started turning over the mangled pieces this way and that, as if looking for something.

“What are you doing?” Serana asked.

“Dwemer oil is supposed to have magicka-restorative properties,” Alexien explained. “I want a sample. It might come in useful.” He ran his hands over the metal for a moment, hoping to find a reservoir, somewhere from which he could fill the sample bottle. Finally he shrugged and pulled out a torn piece of cloth.

“Do you expect we’ll find a fully equipped alchemical apparatus down here?”

Alexien was wiping the cloth over the metal, trying to get it to soak up as much of the residue as possible. “I’ll lick the oil right off this rag if I have to.”

“And people think _we’re_ obsessed with consuming certain fluids.”

He ignored her. “Any use for a soul gem?” he asked.

“Only if it’s black,” said Serana.

Alexien glanced back at her, a look of distaste on his features. He seemed to be trying to tell if she was joking. “No, then.”

Serana was suddenly very eager to disguise that she _hadn’t_ been joking. She changed the subject. “We should camp soon,” she said. “Let’s get away from here, in case something comes to investigate the noise, and then set up as soon as we can.”

“Good idea,” said Alexien, nodding. He rolled up the cloth and stored it in his pack, then turned back to the broken animunculus. He prodded the remains a few times, then summoned electricity around his hand and sent that into the pieces. Nothing happened, and he sighed. “We know they use electricity somehow,” he said absently, “but not... Oh, I wish I could be the one to figure out what in the world the soul gems are for.”

“Let’s leave that to dear _Sorine_ ,” said Serana, mimicking Alexien’s accent as she pronounced the name.

They took one final look around the room and set off. Serana led the way; she had detected a musty, earthy scent down one of the corridors, and thought it must be a draft from natural caverns below, and hoped that might lead them towards Blackreach. But the Dwemer ruins continued the same. After about an hour of walking they found a secluded alcove and started to sit down to rest.

“Blood,” said Serana suddenly. “Nearby.”

Alexien cast his couple of Detect spells, and shook his head. “We should probably check that out.”

Serana nodded, and they set off. Only a few minutes away, down a twisting corridor, they found a small room with a long table in the middle, on which had been set the broken pieces of several Dwemer automata along with a haphazard collection of instruments and papers. Beside the table was a large spatter of blood, with drag marks where it had been smeared across the floor to a wall.

“I think we found another of our explorers,” said Serana.

Alexien repeated his ritual, drawing a chalk circle around the blood. Now that Serana knew what he was trying to do, she was able to sense the working as he poured energy into the circle and the blood resonated, stretching out, looking for its source. She could tell even before Alexien was done that it had failed.

“Maybe the blood we’ve been finding is too old for the spell to work?” she suggested.

“Possibly,” said Alexien, frowning. “Or I might be making a mistake.”

“Or they’re all dead.”

“Or that.”

Alexien looked around the room. Serana examined the items on the table. She picked up a piece of paper, stained with blood but still legible. “You should read this,” she said, handing it to Alexien.

He struggled decipher the letters under the bloodstains. “ _Valie,_ ” he read, “ _a mage not associated with Winterhold. Took some time to find._ ” His eyes scanned over the page, then stopped over a line. He read it aloud: “ _J’darr says he’s hearing a scratching sound from the walls. Probably more of these mechanical spiders. But Umana_ _says she_ _had a nightmare with humanoid figures in it, prowling around in the dark._ ” He glanced over at the wall, then shook his head. “Idiots. There’s a _reason_ the College always tries to send someone who’s actually been trained and prepared on expeditions like this. Now they’re all dead – and, so much the worse for us, they’ve stirred up the Falmer.”

“How inconsiderate of them, dying horrifically like that.”

Alexien sighed and folded up the paper. “You’re right, of course. It’s just that this was... pointless. It didn’t need to happen.”

Serana shrugged. Alexien followed her eyes over the trail of old blood across the floor, disappearing under what appeared to be a solid wall.

“There must be a mechanism to open that,” she said.

“Even if there is, we might not want to go that way,” he answered. “We _know_ the Falmer came from there.”

“Falmer usually live at the bottom, right?” said Serana. “So we _want_ to go where they are, just hopefully without them knowing we’re there.”

Alexien was silent a moment. “This is all a really bad idea, isn’t it?” he asked.

Serana nodded.

They spent some time looking for a hidden button or lever or _something_ to open the hidden door, but eventually were forced to give up. They agreed to move on.

“The only thing I want less than to go that way,” said Alexien, “is to be waiting here when something opens it from the other side.”

Serana agreed, glad that he had said it instead of her, and they continued walking down the passageway. They proceeded on until they thought they were a (relatively) safe distance away, and started to set up camp again. Alexien looked at Serana expectantly; she sniffed the air and shook her head, and they both relaxed. They warded the area rather more heavily than usual, Serana with illusions of concealment, Alexien with apotropaic wards and, just for good measure, fire runes.

They sat down together to relax. Alexien pulled out his scanty rations of water and food, and began to eat. He noticed that Serana hadn’t opened her pack and was just sitting, still and watchful.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he started, “how many of your potions you have left.”

“Enough,” Serana said simply.

“You’ve only been drinking one every other day.”

“Hence why I have enough.”

They sat in silence a while. Alexien watched her with concern. Finally he spoke again, a little hesitantly: “Serana, I know we joke about this a lot, but if it comes to it should we discuss if you might need to actually –”

“No.”

“But if you run out of potions –”

“No.”

Alexien raised his hands in surrender. “All right, I just thought –”

“No.”

“Understood. Potions it is.” He paused a moment. “May I ask why you... feel so strongly about this?”

She turned her eyes on him. Her gaze softened slightly. “Because I don’t want you to think that’s what this is about.”

“Even if I’m freely offering?”

“Never, under any circumstances. I don’t want the slightest suspicion to ever enter your head that I’m just... just _using_ you like that.”

Alexien chewed thoughtfully for a moment, and took a swallow of water. “So,” he said slowly, “in the worst case, you’re willing to starve yourself to make a point?”

“This point, yes.”

Alexien had nothing to reply to that, and fell silent. After a minute he stretched out a hand and grasped Serana’s. Without looking over she gave his hand a gentle squeeze. She left her hand in his, and they sat like that for a while.


	15. Blackreach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, the Blackreach chapter took a bit longer and grew a bit lengthier than I'd been expecting...

The first Falmer they saw was already dead.

It had been, at their best guess, a week since they had been on the surface, and they were still in the Dwemer ruins. But by now even Alexien could tell by scent that they were approaching a natural cavern: the air carried a more earthy smell as of mushrooms, and it was less stale. But the architecture was unchanged, and if Alexien hadn’t known that he had been marking every passageway they took with chalk, he would have thought they were going in circles. He confessed this once to Serana, but she scoffed, tapped her nose, and made fun of his terrible sense of direction.

Then they found the Falmer, in a pool of blood. Something about the smell bothered Serana; she covered her face and stayed back while Alexien examined the body.

It was a pale thing, an unhealthy white, shrunken and withered. Alexien thought of waterlogged flesh under a too-tight bandage, of wounds kept from sun or fresh air that healed into ugly scars. But even its corpse gave a sense of its animal strength, of muscles still taut beneath its hideous skin. It had no eyes – Alexien knew it wouldn’t, but it was still shocking to see the washed-out, scabby flesh stretched over where its eyes should have been. It had died with a snarl on its mouth, its face locked into an expression of fury.

“What the fuck did the Dwemer _do_ to them?” Alexien muttered.

It had been killed by a sword: a single heavy stroke, unbelievably strong, that had crashed straight down through its collar bone and deep into its chest. A human might be able to deal out a wound like that with a greatsword, but Alexien’s money was on an Orsimer. He glanced at the Falmer’s weapon lying a few feet away, a strange axe made of bone and chitin, and noted the blood on it, and knew he was right.

“Orcish blood,” he said to Serana, nodding at the axe.

She took a few steps closer, still covering her mouth with her arm. She looked like she was trying not to vomit. “How can you tell? It doesn’t _smell_ human, but it’s hard for me to say, with all... this.” She waved an arm, trying to clear away the miasma.

“Every traveler from High Rock knows what Orsimer blood looks like,” said Alexien dismissively. “We’ve... not always treated them well, and they repay the favor.” He looked at Serana. “Are you all right?”

“Can you really not smell that?” she asked. She gestured at the dead Falmer. “The blood is just... foul. Like it’s contaminated and rotten at once.”

“It just smells like blood to me. Iron and copper.”

“Well then, this is the first time I’ve been jealous of a mortal in a long age.”

“Will you be all right to go on?”

“Yeah. It’s not _doing_ anything to me, it’s just disgusting. I think it’s worse because I’m... hungry.”

“Do we need to –”

“All we need to do,” Serana interrupted, “is keep going.”

Alexien nodded silently, stood up, and led the way onwards.

Soon afterwards, they finally exited the Dwemer ruins. They passed through a huge gate of metal, with an arch far above them, thick as a city wall; and then all at once they were in a natural cave system. The floor was smooth rock, except where mineral spires stabbed up towards the ceiling. From nearby they could hear the sound of water dripping onto stone.

“Blackreach?” Serana asked doubtfully.

“I think when we’re in Blackreach, we’ll know it,” said Alexien. He looked around. “It’s probably a good idea if we stop talking again for a while.”

Serana nodded. She sniffed the air and shook her head. Alexien cast Detect Life, and suddenly looked startled. He pointed ahead and gave the hand-sign for _Many._

 _Time?_ Serana gestured. _Eyes?_

_Yes._

Alexien dismissed the magelight, and suddenly they were plunged into utter blackness. He waved his hand a few inches in front of his nose and saw nothing. Then he felt Serana’s hand on his forehead, cool and reassuring, felt a surge of her power...

And, all at once, he could see again. The cavern was painted in shades of grey, but perfectly visible. In fact, he could see better and further than he had been able to with the conjured light.

 _Thanks,_ he signed to Serana. _Illusion?_

She gave him a smile, and started working her magic again. Alexien noticed that, although everything else had gone grey, her eyes were still their usual amber-orange. He shook his head and refocused on his own concealment, and wrapped himself in spells of silence.

He had never been particularly good at that kind of magic, but Serana had been right: since he’d been training with her, his skill with Illusion had grown tremendously. He doubted whether even Master Drevis could have done much better at dampening all sound.

When they were ready, Alexien took a few tentative steps onto the rock. He heard absolutely nothing. He tapped his heel on the ground; and again there was no sound at all. It was a little eerie, as if he had lost his sense of hearing completely.

Serana appeared at his side suddenly, again in total silence. She grinned at him, and signed the word _Silly._ She had thought it important that they prearrange a signal for that.

They walked on. This part of the cave system was a long tunnel, rather like a hallway, and periodically other tunnels opened from it on either side; but they kept to the main path, and walked on in darkness and in silence. The only sound Alexien could hear was the pounding of his own heart.

But soon enough they heard other sounds ahead: there was a soft scratching sound, and a patter as of bare feet on stone. They slowed down unconsciously, even though it made no difference to the illusions. They crept forward, and Alexien could feel his heart speeding up.

The tunnel widened, and they entered a larger chamber. And there were Falmer, and they were very much alive.

The cavern was suffused with a soft glow, which Alexien recognized as emanating from the bioluminescent mushrooms growing on the walls. The light was probably much too low for him to have seen anything normally, but with his darkvision accustomed to pitch blackness, it almost hurt to look directly at them. The glow illuminated four or five small huts built up against the rock walls, which were just... some of the most hideous things Alexien had ever seen. They were built of carapace, worked with no great care or refinement to hide what it was; and so the huts looked like nothing so much as haphazard piles of monstrously large insects. He almost swore that they would come alive at any moment and come swarming towards them, and shivered.

But worst of all were the Falmer themselves. Alexien counted eight, but knew there would be more hidden in the huts, waiting. The corpse he had seen did not convey the full monstrosity of the things in motion – and, whatever they may have been in the depths of time, they were certainly _things_ now. Dead, it had seemed almost elf-like, albeit twisted and ruined; living, there was more of the animal in them, except that no natural animal bore an expression of such unthinking hate. One walked – no, scuttered – across the cavern, and it moved bent over and bow-legged, too-long arms like an ape’s almost scraping the floor. Its blind face twisted this way and that, as if its reflexes remembered being able to see; and once it looked right at Serana (Alexien felt her shudder beside him), but then away.

Why, Alexien couldn’t stop himself from wondering, did they even build huts? There was no rain down here, no snow, no wind against which they needed shelter. Alexien doubted, looking at them, that they had a sense of private ownership or a need for personal space. Why, then? The only explanation – a horrible explanation that he desperately hoped was wrong – was that these twisted _things,_ somewhere deep down inside their ruined souls, remembered what they had been, half-remembered what they had lost, and on some reminiscent instinct tried to recapture and rebuild some faint echo, some distant approximation, of the lives they had once led. But the idea that the Falmer on any level _knew_ what they were, was too terrible to entertain.

Serana gestured _Come on_ , and started making her way across the cavern. There was a ramp on the far end, and another tunnel leading further down. Alexien followed, glad to let her take the lead so that he didn’t have to think here. She walked almost normally, just a little slow and hunched, probably unconsciously; and she led the way straight across the middle of the cave.

Alexien’s heart pounded. Rationally, he knew that the Falmer were blind and couldn’t _see_ them, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were surrounded on all sides, and they had only to make one misstep, kick one pebble across the floor, and the things would rush them.

But nothing happened. They were across, and they entered the other tunnel and left the Falmer behind them. Alexien let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. Serana looked over, shook her head, and signed _No_ repeatedly – which he interpreted to mean, _Let’s never do that again._

 _Agreed,_ he gestured back.

They walked on again some distance, and before long found themselves in another cavern, much smaller. The only thing here was a fenced-in area (the barrier was made of unprocessed chitin, and again gave Alexien the sense of a wall of insects). Alexien looked inside. It was filled with bodies. Some were very dead indeed, and had started to decay; others seemed to have been killed only recently. One of these, a Nord woman, held a dagger in her dead grip, hand close to her own severed throat. Several of the bodies had clearly belonged to the party of explorers they had been tracking, wearing assorted leather armor and carrying packs; one of these was an Orsimer – probably the one who had killed the first Falmer. A few of the bodies looked like simple peasants, who – Divines forbid – might just have been travelers that had been snatched from the surface.

 _Found them,_ Serana gestured, with a frown on her face.

Alexien nodded. He traced the sign of Arkay over them in the air. Some part of him wanted nothing more than to go back to the previous cave and burn everything there to ash.

But instead, Serana tapped him on the shoulder, and he took the lead down another tunnel.

He missed a step, and stumbled over something that went clattering over the floor. He realized it was a bone. And a Falmer they hadn’t noticed leapt down out of a hidden alcove above, directly between them.

But it couldn’t sense them. It looked around, and gave the air several sniffs, and moved over and picked up the piece of bone. Serana suddenly appeared behind it, silent as a specter, and snapped its neck.

 _Careful,_ she signed. She started wiping her hands on her cloak, with a look of disgust.

Alexien pointed at the dead Falmer. _What?_

Serana shrugged, picked up the corpse effortlessly, and tossed it over the fence into the pen with the other bodies. Then she gave Alexien a slight bow, and motioned for him to take the lead again.

He did, more carefully than before, and picked his way through the scattered fragments of bone and chitin and... other things, until they were well past the cavern.

He was tired, but this was no place to rest. He drank a potion and started casting Detect spells with much greater regularity. Once Serana stopped him so that they could refresh their illusions, and then they proceeded on again.

The tunnels slowly started to change. Alexien had thought, once they had passed out through that large metal gate and entered the natural cave system, that they had left the Dwemer site behind them. But it was not so. Now, here and there but with increasing frequency, they saw more signs of Dwemer architecture: gates and doorways of metal built around tunnel openings, stonework carved in their unmistakable style, even a few whirring steam engines driving they knew not what, with pipes rising from the floor and disappearing into the walls.

They came to several forks where the tunnels branched. Each time they took the way that seemed most Dwemerish, and they went ever downwards.

Finally there was another metallic gateway, and they found themselves in the largest cavern by far. It was a mixture of natural stone and Dwemer metalwork. At the opposite side from the entrance was a series of carved stone steps leading up to a metal platform, with a huge variety of cogs and wheels and engines and pipes and pistons, all apparently still in working order. Just beyond, there was a large pair of double doors.

Alexien raised a hand and cast Detect Life, and flinched. _Many many,_ he gestured to Serana.

_Where?_

He waved a hand, palm up, around the cavern. _Everywhere._

 _Illusion,_ she said.

Well, their illusions had worked last time. The Falmer couldn’t sense them; they had been able to walk by, literally right in front of their faces, completely undetected. Alexien took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and stepped forwards.

There were more of those hideous huts built into the wall. The Dwemer had built ramps leading to another level over their heads, and still more of the chitinous structures were up there. Alexien stopped counting at twenty.

And there were Falmer.

Everywhere.

Alexien didn’t even bother trying to count them. He put his trust in their illusions, and took several more steps.

He was halfway to the Dwemer steps leading up to the platform and the double doors, and was just thinking that this might not go so badly after all, when he heard a bizarre _chittering_ sound from his right.

All the Falmer in the cavern, as once, snapped their attention towards that sound. Alexien followed their gazes.

It was at least six feet tall, and twice as long. Glistening black chitin reflected the light. Four long, recurved legs supported its bulk; at least a dozen shorter arms along the upright length of its segmented torso waved furiously, and would have been comic if they hadn’t been sickening. It had a head half again as big as a horse’s, flat black and rough. Two mandibles the size of swords clacked against each other, making that chittering noise.

A chaurus.

Alexien just had time to remember that chauruses could see the heat radiated by living bodies, and curse, before it launched itself at him.

A jolt of lightning from Serana hit it in the side, and Alexien leapt back and hurled fire at it. The chaurus let out a sound that could only loosely be called a scream.

And the Falmer charged.

Dozens of Falmer came scurrying across the floor, from left and right and all around; dozens crawled up from hidden holes in the cavern floor; dozens jumped down from ledges overhead. They all cried aloud in hoarse, raspy voices, like bone grating on metal, and raised swords and axes and clubs and spears, and rushed them.

Their illusions frayed under the focused attention, as Alexien and Serana had to turn their concentration towards defense and destruction; but all the same, some threads of the concealing magic remained around them, and that saved them. The Falmer got close, but never _quite_ knew exactly where they were. Half-random sword thrusts and axe strokes whirled all around them, but they never had to deflect more than a couple at once. Several of the Falmer even hit one another.

The chaurus was a different story; and then there were two more like it, and they struck with unerring precision, with stabbing legs and clashing jaws.

But the chauruses seemed to have an animal’s sense of self-preservation, and shrank back from fire and death. The Falmer did not.

Alexien set one alight, and stared with horror as it still rushed at him. It dropped only when its body was physically incapable of movement. Another swung an axe at him, and he stabbed it right through the heart. It screamed in his face, a cry of rage instead of pain, and kept coming. Alexien had to let go his sword and jump backwards to avoid its axe; he blasted it again with fire that it did not seem to feel, and even as it died, even as its lifeblood bled out of it onto the ground, it kept lashing out in blind fury, until finally it went still.

Meanwhile Serana had killed several. She kicked out at the body of one that by all rights should have been dead, but was still trying to reach for her from the ground. She looked shaken. “They just don’t know when to fucking _die_ ,” she said; then dodged another attack, and froze a Falmer into a block of ice.

“Serana!” Alexien shouted. “Get to the doors!”

She started to argue, but saw his face and turned away. A chaurus was in her path; she leapt over it, blasted one Falmer out of her way with lightning, and tore another’s throat open with her claws, and never stopped moving.

Alexien grabbed his sword and decapitated one Falmer that got too close. As soon as he had a free instant to concentrate, he summoned a cloud of energy around himself, forced his aura outwards and channeled magicka into it, and lightning crackled all around him. Any Falmer that got too close convulsed uncontrollably.

But constantly channeling power into the spell was tiring. He looked around for Serana, saw her ahead on the platform, and moved towards her. He struck down one Falmer with fire, and several more touched his aura and fell away. But then there was a chaurus in front of him, and it didn’t seem to feel the lightning.

Just as it lunged for him, Serana appeared, dagger in her hand; she leapt onto the thing’s back and plunged the ebony blade several times between its chitinous plates, and it writhed and tried to shake her off. Alexien stabbed at its face until it stopped moving.

“Quit showing off,” came Serana’s voice, “and get to the fucking doors!” She sent forth a surge of power, and froze three more Falmer solid.

The way was clear, and Alexien loosed the aura spell and ran ahead, Serana right beside him. Right before they got to the doors, he fell back, turned, and launched a wave of fire at their pursuers. He felt Serana grab him by the shoulder and fling him through the doorway.

They were on the other side, and Serana strained and pushed the doors closed. They could hear the Falmer beating and scratching at the other side.

Alexien put his left hand flat on the door beside hers, and called up what remained of his magicka. Hastily he ran his mind through the knots and bindings that were how he visualized the sealing spell, and let the energy flow through his hand into the metal.

The door thrummed with power, and the sound of the Falmer came slightly fainter.

“Will that hold them?” Serana asked.

“Until they get a magic-user to open it,” said Alexien, between breaths. “I don’t have time to do it properly.” Breath. “I miss my staff. Having a focus would come in _really_ useful about now.”

“Reminisce about phallic objects later,” said Serana; “run now.”

They ran. Serana was much faster – really, thought Alexien, it was just completely unfair how fast and strong vampires were – but slowed to match his pace. And so they ran. They ran as the corridor stretched ever on and down into darkness, and the only sound was that of Alexien’s boots striking the rock. They ran until Alexien’s lungs burned and his legs felt like jelly, until Serana finally took pity and jerked him aside into a small room jutting off from the main tunnel. Alexien leaned forwards and put his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath.

Serana raised her hand, and – cast Detect Life. Alexien blinked.

“We should be safe here a while,” she said.

“Where did...?” he started to ask, before he had to take another breath.

“Come on, I’ve seen you cast that spell a hundred times, it was easy enough to figure out.” She paused. “Also I sometimes ‘borrow’ reading material from your backpack when you’re not looking.”

“Great,” said Alexien, forcing himself to stand upright. “Please help yourself. Just let me know when I stop being useful. I promise I’ll bow out gracefully.”

Serana bit her lip. She didn’t want to admit that casting that spell had been a lot more difficult for her than it seemed to be for Alexien. Or that she couldn’t have managed that seal on the door at all. Sure, she could flash-freeze half a dozen Falmer at a time, but that wasn’t much help against a hundred of the damned things at once, and it wouldn’t have stopped them from pursuing.

“So,” she said casually, “we’re safe until they get a magic-user to break your ward, you said. Do Falmer even have magic-users?”

“They’re rumored to,” said Alexien. His breathing was almost normal again. “I mean, they’re still elves, technically.”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out if we see them charging down the corridor after us.”

Alexien grinned. “Come on, this is something I’m actually good at. Even if they had a proper wizard it would take them a while to break through.”

“You said you didn’t have time to do it properly, though.”

“Sure, meaning that they’ll be able to get through _eventually._ If I’d had time they’d _never_ get through – at least, not without a mage a bit more powerful and a lot more patient than I bet they have.”

Serana was impressed, but didn’t want to say so. “So, we’re safe from behind; but let’s hold off on the gloating until we find out if there’s something up _ahead_ that wants to kill us.”

“Oh, I’m confident there is. My money’s on a dragon that wandered off and got stuck down here millennia ago. It’s long odds, I admit, but I think our luck will stretch that far.”

“If there’s a dragon down here, you’re on your own,” said Serana. “I’m much more flammable than you.”

“But not nearly as edible,” Alexien pointed out.

“Just what exactly are you implying?” asked Serana, raising an eyebrow.

“That carnivores tend to prefer their meat fresh, and you’ve been dead, what, twelve hundred years or so?”

Serana drew herself up to her full height and put on an offended expression. “How dare you say that to the woman who just saved your life?”

“Again,” Alexien added.

“Again,” Serana agreed. She hit him playfully on the arm, and almost knocked him over. She raised an eyebrow. “You really need to run more.”

“I find myself agreeing with you,” said Alexien. “But right now I’m tired and hungry, so let’s add that to the schedule for later.”

So they sat down to rest a while and eat. Alexien took a long drink of water, then watched Serana as she rummaged around in her pack for several moments, a troubled expression on her face. She pulled out a red bottle, stared at it, then uncorked it and threw back her head to drink down the contents. She stared again at the empty bottle before packing it away.

“Something wrong?” asked Alexien.

“No,” said Serana quickly. Then she looked up at Alexien, hair falling over her eyes, and smiled awkwardly. “That is... yes, a little. That was my last blood potion.”

“Oh. Well, that’s... not good.”

“It’ll be fine.”

Alexien bit his lip. “Should we turn back?”

Serana waved an arm vaguely the way they had come. “Only if you want to go apologize to the Falmer for getting them all in a tizzy for no reason. The only way we _can_ go is on.”

“And... how long will you be okay to go on?”

“As long as I need to be,” said Serana. Alexien gave her a doubtful look, and she continued: “Don’t worry, I’m not going to go feral on you or anything. I have more control than that.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” said Alexien dismissively.

Serana looked up again, met his eyes, saw the look of unselfish concern on his face. He wasn’t worried about himself, just... _her._ “Oh,” she said, feeling a little awkward. She hesitated. “Four days. I can go four days before it becomes a real problem. Though I would _prefer_ less than that.”

Alexien nodded. “And I don’t suppose the Falmer...”

She shuddered. “No, absolutely not. I think their blood might literally kill me.”

“Okay,” said Alexien. “In that case, if things get dire, that only leaves... well, me.”

Serana bit back an indignant refusal. She reminded herself that he was just worried for her. Which was annoying. And also sweet? “Only if it’s a choice between life and death,” she said finally.

“There’s a joke about undeath there somewhere,” Alexien muttered.

She hit him playfully again. “Gods above, you’re the worst.”

They sat in silence a while, as Alexien finished his meal. Eventually he spoke again: “Serana, while we’re stopped for a minute, there was one other thing.”

Something in his voice made her look up. “What is it?”

Alexien hesitated. “Well... if something happens...”

“Nope, not discussing this.”

“Serana, please. It’s important to me. In the inside pocket of my robes, there are a couple of letters. One is for my parents, and if something happens, I would ask you to please make sure they receive it. And one is... well, one is for you.”

Serana stared at him for a long moment. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear any of that,” she said finally. “Because in a few days we’ll be back on the surface and I’ll be making fun of you for getting all weird about a few dark little caves.” She paused, and looked away. “You have my word, though.”

Alexien nodded his thanks, glad not to say any more; and shortly thereafter they decided to try to get a few hours of sleep. Serana insisted she take the first watch, on what Alexien called the intolerably pedantic grounds that vampires didn’t need as much rest as humans. But finally he lay down and fell asleep almost at once, leaving Serana awake and watchful, and trying not to think about how much trouble she setting herself – or more likely, both of them – up for.

Did he even – but she shook her head, and focused again on her lookout.

* * *

Serana let Alexien sleep too long, and didn’t wake him for his watch. At first he was grumpy at that, but grudgingly admitted that he had probably needed the rest, and that Serana’s senses were of course much sharper than his and she was a better lookout anyway. She rolled her eyes and mouthed _Obviously_ _._ But she reassured him that she had never seen or heard or smelled anything; they had been as safe there as they had ever been since entering Alftand.

Alexien took a few minutes to sharpen the notches out of his sword, which went rather quickly with the help of a few small Alteration spells he had invented. Serana took stock of their remaining supplies. She shoved a potion for regenerating magicka at Alexien and insisted he drink it, because he still hadn’t really been able to sleep as much as he ought; for herself she took a few small bottles of fire resistance potions and kept them easily accessible, because, she said with a pointed stare, Alexien had come _awfully_ close with a few of those firebolts, and she was starting to lose confidence in his aim.

He replied that they should head out, and it was time again to stop talking.

They hadn’t been able to examine the main tunnel well while they were sprinting down it. Now it was clearly part of the natural cave system, but had been worked on by the Dwemer: the floor was perfectly smooth, perfectly straight, perfectly level; and the walls had been carved away in places to give the walkway a consistent width. It had the atmosphere of a road or highway.

That was encouraging: If the Dwemer had put the effort into building an underground highway, it had to lead somewhere, and presumably somewhere important.

Then again, one could never be entirely sure why the Dwemer did anything they did.

Serana’s spell on Alexien’s eyes had worn off, so he cast a light, looked back once the way they had come, and took the lead further down into the darkness.

It was hard to tell how far or how long they walked. Unlike in the ruins above, here there was no variety of architecture to break up the monotony. There were a few small rooms here and there off the main passage, like the one they had stayed in; but even these were all completely identical to one another. The road never turned right or left, never leveled out or sloped steeper, but went on and on, straight as an arrow, down, down, down.

Finally – there was a light ahead, still distant and faint. As they drew closer they could tell that it was a hazy blue. Still closer, and Serana motioned for Alexien to dismiss his light, and they wrapped themselves in illusion and approached more carefully.

They stood at the tunnel’s exit, where Alexien cast Detect and Serana sniffed at the air; but neither sensed anything, and so they stepped through, into that hazy blue glow.

It took Serana’s eyes a moment to adjust, and then her jaw dropped.

They were in – she guessed she had to call it a _cavern,_ but the word was laughably insufficient. It was almost an insult to what they saw. Indeed, t here _were_ no words for what they saw. It was a cavern in the sense that the surging ocean was a muddy lake. The rock floor fell away, and the ceiling rose, higher and higher above them, until even to Serana’s eyes it disappeared in darkness. The cavern stretched on and on and on before them, unimaginable in its breadth, in its sheer scale. Cities could have fit in that cavern – all the cities and towns and villages of Skyrim stacked atop one another wouldn’t have touched its ceiling. Mountains, whole mountain ranges, would have fit there, and called it roomy. Holds, provinces, could be contained there; wars could have been fought by nations occupying different regions of that expanse, quarreling where to draw the borders of their underground realms.

Alexien, trying to describe it later, stumbled through several broken metaphors, and finally just said “Kynareth’s sake, it had _wind_ underground, natural air currents and _wind;_ it had _weather_!”

And yet the size, the sheer blank vastness, was not the first thing they noticed.

It was the light, the source of that gentle blue haze. Again, Serana found her words insufficient; to call them _mushrooms_ would have been like calling a forest of mighty oaks a patch of grass. But mushrooms they were: some related kin of the glowing mushrooms they had seen in the caves above, but titanic. Each was the size of a tree, and shed light all around it. These dotted the whole landscape, some as solitary giants, others in clusters of misty brightness, patches of illumination breaking through the curtain of night.

But nowhere in the vast cavern was it true night, true darkness; there were only blurry areas in the landscape where the glow was less. Serana looked up. The ceiling was _not_ an invisible shroud, as she had thought at first: it was dotted with specks of that soft light, a thousand thousand pinpricks in the blackness. She had noticed once before, when they were in Solitude, that the light of the city drowned out the night stars and left visible only a few faint glimmers of their glory; when they left the city, it was like the splendor of the night sky had reemerged from behind a cloud, shouting _Here I am, adore me._ But that full and revealed splendor was only a faint impression of _this;_ it was as if the gods had seen her gazing in wonder at that first revelation of starlight, and drawn away yet another curtain, and finally let her see _this_.

She knew not how long she stared in astonishment and rapture. “Gods above, Alexien,” she breathed, “it’s... it’s beautiful. I’m so glad you’re here with me, to see this.”

Alexien stepped closer beside her, staring up with her at the light overhead. He opened his mouth to say something, and closed it again. He noticed that he was holding Serana’s hand, and couldn’t remember which of them had reached out for the other. “It is,” he said. “It’s... Serana, it’s glorious.”

Serana turned to look at him. She was grinning. She was so happy that it almost hurt to look at her face; it was like staring at the sun. Alexien felt himself grinning back.

“I think we’ve found Blackreach,” he said. He turned to look again around the landscape. “And it was completely worth it.”

Serana’s grin widened, and she let out a breathless little laugh. She looked down and realized she was holding on to Alexien’s hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze before letting go.

“Right,” she said. “We should probably look around and make sure something’s not about to try to kill us. But after that... we have time to just _look,_ right?”

No, they didn’t have time. But Alexien glanced again at the thousand thousand pinpricks of light overhead, and then back at Serana; and what he said was, “Of course we do.”

They tried to refocus on immediate practical needs again, and get their bearings. They had exited the tunnel onto a cliff, giving them that overview of all Blackreach. Here and there they could see lakes and mushroom-forests, but straight ahead, in what might have been the very middle of the cavern, there loomed up what looked like the ruins of a great city. Alexien pointed it out to Serana, who shook her head.

“That’s not where the Elder Scroll is,” she said.

Alexien looked at her with some surprise. “How do you know?”

“Because Septimus gave me directions, while you were... hallucinating, or whatever that was.” She turned to look at him. “By the way, I’m assuming you still can’t say anything about that?”

He tried, and shook his head.

“Well then, that’s something for us to worry about _after_ we get the Scroll and get out.”

They started looking for a path down from the cliff. It wasn’t hard to find: off to their left the Dwemer had cut a road into the cliff face, zigzagging back and forth on the way down to ground level. Along the way they saw more signs of Dwemer activity: indeed, the whole area beneath the cliff was littered with broken remnants of buildings, half-stone and half-metal – probably houses, Alexien guessed. The architecture was much like that of Alftand above, but also subtly different. Were these older than the ruins closer to the surface, or more recent?

Or – Alexien shivered as he looked – were these perhaps the dwellings that the Dwemer had assigned to the Snow Elves, before they were twisted into the Falmer? Were these buildings actually houses at all, or were they barracks – or even slave quarters?

Serana prodded him out of his reverie, and he followed her onwards along the road.

If they had thought that Blackreach would be less dangerous because it was so beautiful, they were quickly disabused of that notion. They encountered three Dwemer automata, wandering the same road apparently at random, or else according to some ancient and obsolete programming. But this time Serana noticed them first, and she and Alexien were able to surprise them. Serana blasted them with lightning while Alexien telekinetically hurled slabs of rock at them, until they were battered to pieces.

But the noise was deafening, and they fled away from the road in haste and took cover in a grove of those enormous mushrooms, wrapping themselves again in illusions. Some time later they saw more of the automata pass by, but these did not detect them.

They emerged from the grove beneath a tall stone tower, again unmistakably Dwemerish in origin, and yet different from any Dwemer buildings Alexien had read of before. Just as he was trying to guess at the purpose of the tower, Serana pulled him down to the ground, and he looked up to see a Falmer armed with a bow emerging onto one of the tower’s balconies. It did not notice them, and after a while it returned inside.

There were many other signs of Falmer occupation. Near the road they frequently saw footprints, as of whole companies of the things marching back and forth; often they saw discarded arrows tipped with points of chitin, or pieces of armor or weaponry wrought of carapace. On one occasion they stumbled across the dead bodies of a whole group of Falmer – at least six, but they were so crushed and mutilated it was hard to tell. Alexien wondered if the tales of gigantic Dwemer centurions might have some truth after all.

An image flashed through his mind, of Falmer locked in combat with automata that still fought on even though their creators were long vanished, in a war that had been waged with unceasing hatred for century after century, right under the feet of the surface-dwellers above.

Alexien looked around, and decided he wanted to be somewhere else as soon as possible.

When it came time to rest – though neither Serana nor Alexien was quite sure how long they had been trekking through Blackreach, and it might have been two days instead of one – they climbed a hill some distance from the road and sequestered themselves near another grove of those high mushrooms. From that spot they could see anything coming for miles around, but would themselves be shielded from view (especially after they warded their campsite with paranoid fervor).

As a side-benefit, the view was also spectacular. For some time, Alexien and Serana lay on the ground side-by-side, staring up at the starry ceiling above or gazing out over the landscape.

“So,” asked Alexien when they awoke again, “where did Septimus tell you we could find the Scroll?”

“He was vague and wordy at the same time,” said Serana with a shrug. “But what I understood was that we should follow the road from Alftand, and eventually we’ll see a tower rising up out of a lake, and the Scroll will be inside.”

Alexien looked out over the distant scenery. There were many towers and many lakes, but no lakes with towers in the middle of them. “Did he say how long it would take?”

Serana shook her head. She caught Alexien’s eye and knew he was worrying about their supplies: his own stores must be running low, and she had drunk the last of her potions at least two days before.

He changed the subject. “And did he say anything about that city?” he asked, gesturing to the large complex of ruins in the middle of Blackreach. It looked like the road ran directly beneath it.

“No,” said Serana. “But I bet it’s absolutely crawling with Falmer.”

“Everything here is crawling with Falmer,” Alexien muttered. “This is where the Falmer _come from._ ”

They walked on. The road was level and smooth, while on either side of it the terrain either rose into steep hills or fell away into cliffs; but whenever possible they tried to stay off the road while still keeping it within sight. They lost time this way, but they avoided at least two Falmer patrols (were they intelligent enough to patrol, Alexien wondered, or were they just moving about by random instinct?) that passed beneath them on the road while they hid on a steep hill above.

It was hard to gauge the distance underground: when they set out that morning they had thought that the central city was perhaps only a few hours’ walk away, but when they stopped again to rest it still loomed up ahead of them.

Serana was starting to turn quiet. Had it been three days since she had eaten anything, or four? Longer? She told Alexien that she was just hungry and would be fine; but all the same, that he might want to avoid bothering her with questions. He gave her space.

Very reluctantly, he even left her alone at the campsite for a little while so that he could climb further up a nearby hill and get a better view ahead. He gazed out again over the landscape, and forced himself not to be distracted by its surreal beauty – but he found what he was looking for: in the distance ahead of them, a tower rising up out of a lake.

“Good news and bad news,” he told Serana when he got back. She looked up at him slowly. Her eyes were much brighter than normal. “I saw the tower we’re looking for. But the road goes right under that city, and the region around here is so uneven and broken that I’m not sure there’s any other way through to the lake. We’ll have to take the road.”

Serana took a few seconds to answer. “I guess we’ll find out just how many Falmer are there, then.”

Alexien nodded, hesitated. “Are you all right?”

“It’s not a matter of life and death yet,” she said.

“Right,” said Alexien. He was worried, but she clearly didn’t want to discuss it. “Well, we’ll want to go all-out on the illusion tomorrow, and we might be able to sneak by undetected. I have a few potions to help with your magicka, if you’re – tired.”

Serana nodded, but said nothing.

“Are you –” Alexien started; but Serana glared at him and he shut up. She gave him a weak apologetic smile.

“You should know,” she said after a minute, “when we get like this, we’re... stronger. But it’s harder to control. If we have to fight tomorrow, the Falmer will be easier for me to handle, but... but you should stay away from me.”

Alexien hesitated. He knew what he _wanted_ to argue: That if Serana was in danger of losing control, it would be better for both of them if she just went ahead and took a small amount of his blood. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea (though some part of it _was_ thrilling), but it made sense logically.

But when he opened his mouth, she seemed to guess what was on his mind, and gave him such an inhuman glare that for a second he was genuinely frightened of her. He raised his hands in surrender, and she looked away.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a while.

“It’s okay,” he said.

She shook her head, and was silent for a minute. “Will you – can we just lie back and enjoy the view again?”

Alexien moved to sit down closer to her, and she gave him a look half-gratitude, half-apology. They lay down on the ground, side-to-side again, and stared up – perhaps for the last time – at the enchanting underground sky of Blackreach, and tried not to think about the coming day.

* * *

Every last shred of Illusion magic they could think of, they used. And for Serana, that was considerable indeed.

They cast no light, and each muffled their own footsteps. Serana improvised a spell that she thought would hide even their body heat from the stranger senses of a chaurus. They enfolded themselves in shadow and darkness, making them all but invisible – true invisibility they wouldn’t be able to maintain for more than a few minutes at a time, but this was quite nearly as good, down here in the subterranean depths of Blackreach. Finally Alexien added a spell to make them seem boring and unremarkable, so that even if something did perceive them, it might not take conscious note of them.

Thus they approached the massive ruins of the Dwemer city towering above them. It might be full of Falmer; for all they knew, it might also be empty, in which case they would have a good laugh about their overkill paranoia.

It wasn’t empty.

The road narrowed as they drew near, steep cliffs on their left, and on their right the jagged rocks on top of which the city walls stretched high above them. Atop the walls they could see figures moving back and forth. These were backlit, illuminated by a strange yellowish light coming from inside the city, unlike the hazy blue in the rest of Blackreach.

They had noticed that light before, a distinctive glow that rested on the ruins of the city, and wondered what it was. But they had no time to worry about it now. They walked on beneath the city walls as if nonchalantly, trying to slip by without notice.

A huge ramp and stairway loomed up off the road, and stretched up to a massive opening in the walls. It had been a gate once, crafted of Dwemer metal, presumably with matching doors of the same substance; and once it must have been formidable indeed. Now it was broken to pieces and lay scattered around, little more than a gap in the walls. But it was a gap that let them see into the city, and see the source of that light.

The entire city within the walls was illuminated as if by daylight, clear and bright as noonday on the surface far above. It teemed with activity; Falmer were dense and busy as ants within. And high above was a great burning orb suspended above the city, like a miniature sun encased in metal. Serana saw it and bared her teeth at it, and knew not why.

The light from that orb streamed down through the gate and fell across the path, drenching the road in brightness. Alexien came to an involuntary stop at the edge of that light. He glanced up at the figures above, still milling about oblivious of them; and he stretched forward his hand and his senses towards the brightness.

 _Not magic,_ he signed to Serana. _But not not magic._ Serana raised an eyebrow, and Alexien shrugged in frustration at the limited vocabulary.

 _Dwemer magic?_ asked Serana doubtfully.

Alexien didn’t answer. He looked around. There was still a high cliff to their left, and to their right only the steps leading up to the city. That had no choice but to go forwards, or go back.

Serana followed his gaze, guessed his thoughts, and gestured _Forwards, carefully._

Alexien nodded, and at the same they stepped forward together into the light.

And several things happened at once.

Alexien felt the light as a physical sensation on his skin, not quite like natural sunlight, but more comparable to it than anything else. To him there was none of the electric tingle he associated with magic. And yet he felt it pressing against his magic. It felt like a strong autumn wind, driving leaves and dust before it.

And it blew away the illusory darkness they had drawn around them. Alexien felt the spell dissolving in his mind, drying up like grass until the last shreds of it were borne away.

As if in answer a great noise rose up from the city, a clamor of inarticulate voices, and a deep resounding note like the blowing of a horn.

“Okay, or maybe not forwards,” said Serana.

“It’s a little late to change your answer now,” said Alexien, and drew his sword.

More figures rose up on the walls, all carrying bows or javelins, and they looked straight at Alexien and Serana. The gate boiled over and sent forth a mass of Falmer, all heavily armored and carrying swords and long spears. On the road behind them several chauruses appeared from nowhere; the Falmer flooding down the steps divided, some moving ahead to cut them off, some charging straight for them.

An arrow whizzed by Serana’s ear; a javelin came for her chest, but she knocked it aside with her hand. A dozen more arrows blurred through the air, and Alexien raised a shield and stepped in front of her.

But their enemy were just too many. Before, they had some remnants of illusion to half-hide them from the Falmer; now they were naked and exposed, and they were only two against two hundred. There was, Alexien knew at once, no way out of this: no victory, and no survival.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Serana.

“It was worth it,” she answered.

The first several Falmer to reach them went down before Serana. She fought like a thing possessed, so fast that Alexien could barely see her move, so furious that he wondered at the Falmer who still threw themselves into a whirlwind of blood and death.

Alexien turned to another group rushing at them, and waved an arm at the ground. The rock boiled like water, and the Falmer sank down into it up to their chests and were stuck. Others leapt over them and were thrown back by fire and lightning; one reached Alexien, and he cut it down with the fury of despair.

Serana was surrounded; she somersaulted back from them, and Alexien set two aflame. A chaurus reared up beside Serana, but she whirled and froze it solid, shattered it with a strike of her hand; Alexien grasped those shards of ice with his magic and hurled them like shrapnel at another wave of Falmer.

An arrow whipped by Alexien’s head, and Serana pushed him out of the way of a javelin; then she was surrounded again. She raised her arms, and there was a noise like thunder and a flash of fire, and half a dozen of the Falmer fell away from her, bodies burnt black. She dodged a sword stroke, seized the attacker by its arm, and threw it into another cluster of Falmer, knocking them all down. Alexien waved an arm again and trapped them in the rock.

But there were more, always more. Every one they killed was replaced by three. The Falmer had them surrounded now, in a ring of swords and spears and axes, and the ring drew ever tighter around them.

“Dagon take them,” spat Serana. “Alexien – give me twenty seconds!”

Twenty seconds. It might as well have been a lifetime. It might have _been_ the remainder of his lifetime. But he nodded. Serana took a step back and closed her eyes. Alexien cast a ward around her, and turned to face the Falmer closing in on every side.

But Serana had asked him for this final favor. He would do it, and then die. The thought was strangely liberating. If he had to die, and not bother with something as trivial as survival, he could cut loose, could fight without restraint or reservation, could show these creatures that there was still in the world a power they should dread. Perhaps – he smiled at the thought – perhaps he could do deeds worthy of the mage-knights from the stories he used to read, even if no one ever remembered his last battle.

Except – Serana might.

Alexien didn’t wait for them to charge again. He cried aloud with rage and flung himself ahead, straight into the densest part of the Falmer line. He cast a fireball from point-blank range, and even as he blasted a hole in their ranks he felt the fires burn his own hand; but he ignored the pain. He struck with his sword, and struck again, and again. They reformed and closed in on him, but he only fought the fiercer. A snarling face appeared at his side, and he smote it apart with a thunderbolt; a clawed hand, white and deformed, reached for him, and his sword flashed and took it off; flashed again, and there was an inarticulate cry of pain and a spray of blood. They cut at him with swords and stabbed at him with spears, but for the first time in his life Alexien knew absolute clarity in battle, and his every move was _perfect_ – every dodge, every parry, every riposte was _exactly_ right; every spell struck its target, and every curse laid an enemy low.

The Falmer fell or fled before him. Alexien raised his sword and shouted, a horrid joy overflowing his chest, and cut down another Falmer trying to cringe away. He turned and cast flame at a few getting too close to where Serana stood; they melted back and he leapt upon them, blade shining in the mage-fire, bright amidst the smoke.

But there were more, always more, and still they closed in.

“Alexien!” came Serana’s voice. “Stand close beside me!”

He threw one final blast of lightning and jumped to her side. He felt her aura at once: she was channeling so much power it _hurt_ just to be near her.

Then Serana raised her hands, and the world went red.

There was a blaze of crimson so bright that Alexien shut his eyes, and a roar like a thunderstorm. When he opened his eyes again, the nearest enemies had been thrown back, scorched and mangled. Serana waved her arms imperiously, and a wall of black fire leapt up in a great circle all around her and Alexien, blocking out the Falmer. The flame writhed and seethed like a living thing. Whenever one of the enemy touched it, tongues of fire, coal-black and violet, leapt out and seized them, and consumed them.

Serana took a step towards one section of the surrounding Falmer, and the ring of flame moved with her. The enemy fell back or burned. She took another step, and several Falmer who didn’t get out of the way in time went up like torches.

Alexien saw a group of archers drawing on Serana, whose entire focus was on her spell. He deflected their arrows and struck them with lightning, and tried to stay at Serana’s side.

The Falmer line in front of Serana was forced back, buckled, broke; then all at once Serana leapt forward straight into the midst of them, and they screamed. She threw her arms out, and the wall of fire exploded outwards; the nearest enemies that weren’t killed outright were hurled away.

And the way was clear: Alexien looked ahead of Serana, and saw the road leading on, past the city, down to the tower in the lake.

“Time to run again,” Serana called, and without waiting for an answer sprinted ahead. Alexien took off after her.

The Falmer surged after them. Alexien had killed many, Serana may have killed more; but an uncounted mass was still at their sides and at their back, and these snarled in fury and gave chase.

Serana stopped, turned, and launched projectiles of ice at the Falmer closest to Alexien. He ran some distance past her, then stopped and turned as well, and lay down a cover of fire spells while Serana in turn ran past him. And so they ran on, and switched out time and again each to protect the other while they fled. Even the Falmer withered under the constant barrage of magic, and some faltered and slowed; but more still rushed ahead, heedless of any danger to themselves. Alexien doubted there was anything left of their minds but hate.

And they were _fast_.

Not as fast as Serana, but much faster than him.

Finally they neared the lake. There was a narrow bridge leading across it to the steps of the tower. Serana ran ahead and stopped in front of the bridge; as Alexien went past her, she shouted, “Get the door!”

He understood, and sprinted across the bridge. He pulled open the heavy metal door of the tower – thank the Eight, it moved – and stepped inside without giving the interior even a glance, and at once started concentrating on a spell to seal the door.

Serana was still fighting outside; he heard her snarling – he hoped in anger and not in pain – and felt the detonation of her magic. But all that Alexien pushed away. He put a hand on the open door and sent streams of energy into it, and focused them into tight bands of power; then, slowly and carefully, he started drawing and entwining those together, knotting them into an impenetrable web. As he worked he chanted words of sealing and strength, of standing and staying, of holding and halting, of barring and bolting, of mountains whose roots stretched deep into the earth, of towers that climbed high to heaven.

When the spell was ready he held it in his mind, so that it needed only a final act of will to snap into place. He spared just enough of his attention to call “Serana!” Even at that the spell started to slip, and he redoubled his hold on it.

There was one final explosive _crack_ of thunder, alarmingly close, and then Serana leapt through the doorway. She put her back to the door and forced it closed.

At once the Falmer beat against it from the other side, snarling in fury, and their weapons and claws rang against the metal. Alexien loosed the spell, and commanded the door to hold. And it held.

Serana sank down to the ground, still leaning against the door. “Will that keep them out?” she asked.

It took Alexien a few seconds to draw enough breath to answer. “They might be able to tear down the stone _around_ the door and rip out its hinges,” he said, “but that door’s not opening.”

“All the same, let’s not stay here,” said Serana, rising to her feet. She didn’t refuse to take Alexien’s offered hand, and that scared him.

The interior of the tower looked much like any of the other Dwemer architecture they had seen in Alftand, but they paid it little attention. They found a stairwell and climbed up a few floors, until the noise of the Falmer had died away. One room looked quiet and safe; they fell into it with almost painful relief and sat down on the floor, trying to catch their breath.

“Are you all right?” asked Alexien. “After that spell...”

“I’m... fine,” Serana said weakly. “I just need a minute. That... took a lot out of me.”

Alexien nodded, and sat back against the wall. He laughed from sheer relief.

After a while their breathing had returned to normal, but they didn’t move. Having a minute to rest was precious, and as long as they sat there they felt safe; getting up risked breaking the spell.

Suddenly Serana edged closer to Alexien, and when he didn’t move away she looked closely into his face. Her eyes were so bright, thought Alexien; bright, and agonizingly beautiful.

“You know... I really am glad you're here with me,” she said softly.

He felt his pulse quickening. “I'm glad to be here too.”

She smiled, and her eyes flitted over his face. Alexien felt himself smiling back involuntarily. “Did you mean it?” he asked suddenly. She raised an eyebrow, and he clarified, embarrassed: “When you said it had been worth it, I mean?”

Her smile widened. “Of course I meant it,” she said. “You... think so too, don’t you?”

He nodded. His mouth felt dry, and he doubted he could have made a coherent answer.

“Silly,” said Serana; but the word was almost a caress. She leaned in still closer. Alexien closed his eyes and felt her kiss his cheek, her lips cool and captivating. They lingered on his skin just an instant too long for it to be a friendly gesture.

“Serana?” he asked breathlessly.

“Alexien,” she whispered, in a quiet voice that sent a thrill through him.

Softly, slowly, her lips tracked down to his neck, just brushing his skin in a series of light kisses. She gave a little sigh of pleasure, and Alexien felt his heart beat faster; he realized his hands were around Serana’s waist and did not remember putting them there, and didn’t care.

But wherever Serana’s lips touched his skin, it... tingled, somewhat. Not unpleasantly, by any means. But something in his brain kicked into gear; and just as he knew the sensation for what it was – just as he recognized the subtle hum of magic – he felt in Serana’s last gentle kiss something sharp against his throat.

Suddenly he jumped back and scrambled to his feet. Serana stood up with him, inhumanly graceful, too graceful for how exhausted she had been minutes before. And her eyes – Alexien realized that they were not just bright, but much too bright; and the beauty in them was cold and cruel.

“What's wrong?” Serana asked; she moved closer and put a hand on his arm. “I _know_ you want this too.”

“I...” Alexien swallowed. “That’s not... the point right now.”

“Then what’s wrong?” she asked again, in a voice confused and hurt. “I don’t bite.”

“You do, though,” he said; but he hated himself as he said it. Saying it wrenched something in his chest; it felt like he might as well have kicked her. But he could still feel his heart racing, not all of it with panic, and there were butterflies in his stomach. He found one of his hands, as if by its own accord, had moved again to her waist; and he tried, and failed, not to rejoice at touching her.

She smiled – too wide, her teeth too white; but still she was impossibly beautiful. “Is that what you’re afraid of?” she cooed. “I promise... you’ll like it.”

Gods, he believed her.

But this just... wasn’t her. This wasn’t how she normally acted. And that worried him – not only for himself, but also for her. Giving in felt oddly like he would be taking advantage of her, quite as much as her taking advantage of him.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t... this.”

“And you said you were freely offering,” she answered. She moved closer; one hand still grasped his arm, and the other rested on his waist, and he was powerless to move away. “That was then. This is now. And now... now I _need_ it, Alexien.”

He struggled to find something to reply to that, and failed utterly. Serana grinned and pressed against him, drew his body tighter against hers, and lay her cheek against his. “Now come here,” she whispered in his ear. “I need you.”

Something finally moved in his brain, and he tried to pull back. But her hands still forcefully held him close, grasping his arm and his waist; and she was _strong_. He struggled a moment, but she hardly even seemed to notice. He managed to turn his face away from hers, but she moved with him, rested her forehead gently against his, and stared into his eyes.

He tried to ignore the little breathy sighs she was giving, and stared back into her eyes from mere inches away. They were positively luminous now, dazzling, alluring – and empty. And yet all he wanted was to dive into those amber eyes and lose himself in them.

Just when he could bear it no more, and he was already leaning forward to kiss her, he felt it – slight, faint, but unmistakable: a psychic pressure against his temples. Like when he had practiced with her. She was – he could hardly believe it – she was actually trying to break into his mind. Unconsciously, perhaps: the attack was far weaker than what he knew she was capable of; but still, it was there.

“Serana?” He had meant it to sound like a warning, but it came out as a question.

The psychic pressure redoubled. Alexien shoved away his sudden panic – he had never been able to resist her before, never been able to hold out against her mental attacks – and tried to put up a wall in his mind. That alien power rushed against it, all the stronger now that he was pushing back instead of letting it carry him away.

But it was familiar. He knew that power, and knew the pattern of its thoughts. It flowed into him like water – but this time, he was the stronger. It was a river in flood, sweeping away all before it, hasty, desperate – but for the first time, he stopped it; and with an effort of will, though it tore at his insides to do it, though it was the hardest thing he had ever done, because deep down he did not want to do it, he threw her back and out.

Serana recoiled as if she’d been struck. She blinked at him in confusion.

“Serana,” he said again, more firmly. “Come on, this isn’t you.”

She blinked again, and opened her mouth to say something. Then a look of utmost horror passed over her features. She tore herself away and jumped back out of reach.

“Oh... oh gods,” she breathed. Alexien dared to look at her eyes; they were her own again, the familiar brightness he had grown to – had grown fond of. But now they were not empty; now they brimmed over with wretchedness and loathing.

“It’s okay,” he said, just to say something. He still felt his heart racing.

“No, it’s...” she shook her head. “By all the – I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean...”

“It’s okay,” he said again. “Are you... are you all right?”

Serana laughed bitterly. “That you’d even ask that...” she shook her head again. “Yeah, I... gods, Alexien, I’m so sorry. Please believe me, I never meant to...”

“It's all right. No harm done.” But his breathing was still ragged, his stomach still fluttered.

“I could have...”

“You didn't. I'm okay. You’re okay.”

“And what I _said_...”

Was she... blushing?

He shook his head. They stood there awkwardly a minute.

“I should... go,” said Serana, and started to turn away.

“Wait,” Alexien said hastily, and reached forward and grabbed her arm. She flinched at his touch, and he let go. “Sorry,” he said.

“Just don’t... not right now.”

“Sorry,” Alexien said again, and took a step back away from her. “But you don’t have to go anywhere. That’s all I meant.”

“Alexien, if I don’t... do you have any idea what I just tried to do to you?”

“I know exactly what you just tried to do to me. But you didn’t. It’s all right.”

“Only because...” She bit her lip, then looked up at him. “Are you sure? Really sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said.

Serana was quiet for a long time. “Just... keep an eye on me, then,” she said finally. “And please be careful.”

Alexien nodded. He hesitated a second, and started: “Serana, if you need...”

“Are you serious? _No,_ Alexien. I think we just established exactly why that’s a _really_ bad idea. I can wait. I’m okay now.”

“Right,” he said. “Let’s... keep going, then. We’ll get the Elder Scroll and be back on the surface in no time.”

He turned away as if to continue. Serana’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm again – but gently, without the strength it had before. He turned to look at her and she let go, and smiled sheepishly.

“Hey, I... I did mean it,” she said, “I _am_ glad you're here with me. That wasn't just – I mean, I couldn't do this without you.”

He looked into her eyes again; they were just as beautiful as before, and still he could have lost himself in them. The butterflies came back. “There's nowhere else I'd rather be,” he said.

She grinned, and after a second stepped back, gestured for him to follow her, and led the way on through the passage.

Alexien followed without paying much attention where he was walking.

That... had been bad. He knew what she was and what she was doing, but even so hadn't been able to resist; all it had taken was a light kiss on the cheek, and he _wanted_ it. Wanted _her._

Probably just because she caught him off guard, he told himself, when he hadn’t been expecting anything like that. He just hadn't been mentally prepared. Sure. That was it. After all, there was no way he'd let himself _fall_ for a vampire.

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself.

Sure, he had long thought of Serana as a friend, and he enjoyed spending time with her. More than anything else in the entire world. And the thought of returning to Winterhold, resuming his old life _without her_ when all this was over, was like a fist clenching over his heart. But none of that meant he was in _love_ with her or anything like that. Just because he sometimes found himself talking just so that he could listen to the sound of her voice when she answered; just because it sent electricity through him whenever she so much as touched his hand, or how his heart melted with joy and fear whenever she said his name; just because he held dear in memory every time she had ever confided in him, every time she had ever made it clear by word or action that she trusted him implicitly, every time she had ever looked at him with those warm, deep, heart-rending amber eyes, which he now knew was definitely the prettiest color eyes could be –

“Fuck,” he muttered again.

They had been growing close, certainly. But he’d been pretending to himself that he didn’t see it, and that it didn’t mean to him what it did. _Had long thought of Serana as a friend_ – he kicked himself mentally. A friend, no doubt, and a good friend, his best and favorite friend – but not just that. It wasn’t with her as a _friend_ that he wanted to spend the rest of his life. For Mara’s sake, did friends hold hands as they’d been doing, while they told each other their deepest secrets? Did they dance right up to the line of saying the sort of thing he really felt in his heart, and pretended he didn’t mean by his words what any idiot could tell he meant?

And Serana – she wasn’t an idiot. She knew. She had to.

Did she... did she feel the same way, then?

He had to admit, based on how she sometimes acted, the things she had said to him, the moments they had shared – it seemed impossible that she didn’t. But at other times... he couldn’t be sure. Maybe that was just her manner. Maybe it hadn’t meant any more than... than whatever had just happened. Did vampires even – _could_ they even...?

 _“I can’t imagine_ _how lonely you must have been,”_ _he had told her._

_“I’m not anymore, though,” she had answered._

If she were human, he, even he, would never have doubted for a second the significance of a statement like that, delivered in that voice, with that look in her eyes.

But she wasn’t.

So... he would just have to... talk to her about it. With words.

“Fuck,” he muttered yet again.

“Alexien,” came Serana’s voice from up the stairwell ahead, “I think I’ve found it.”

“Coming,” he answered, and followed her voice through the darkness.


	16. Confessions

Serana was standing at a huge heavy gate, blocking the way up through the rest of the tower. When Alexien caught up with her, she was straining against the door with all her might, trying to push it open; but the reinforced metal stood firm.

She gave up, and turned to Alexien. “I don’t sense anything magical, but maybe you...?”

He extended a hand, and shook his head. “It’s not warded. So it’s just... Dwemer.”

“In that case,” said Serana, “I believe it’s time we avail ourselves of mad old Septimus’ help.” She gestured to a small round hole or receptacle in the wall near the gate. “Do you still have the attunement sphere?”

Alexien fished in his pack – reluctantly, for some reason. He brought out the bronze sphere and held it out away from his body, as if he was afraid to touch it.

“Something wrong?” Serana asked.

“I’m... not sure,” said Alexien, frowning. “Thinking. There’s something I’m missing.” But after a moment he shook his head.

“Should I...?”

“No,” he said, stepping towards the door, “I’ve got it.” With a trepidation he could not explain, he lay the sphere in the receptacle. At once something clicked – in the mechanism, and in his brain – and he went to grab the sphere and pull it back; but it was too late. The door whirred and swung open.

“Julianos preserve,” Alexien breathed. It was so obvious; why had it taken him so long to realize...?

Serana gave him a questioning look.

“I’ll explain later,” he said. He took the sphere again, and forced his hand not to tremble. “Let’s grab the Scroll and get back to the surface.”

“Is it bad?”

Oblivion, yes. Literally. “Not imminently.”

Serana looked disposed to stop him and argue, but seemed to decide that, after what had just happened, she was in no position to press him about anything. She nodded and turned away, and then wordlessly followed Alexien through the doorway.

They climbed more stairs into a vast circular chamber, all of metal and crystal, with a high vaulted ceiling. In the exact middle of the room was a raised platform; on one side was a kind of loft, with a ramp up to a higher level overlooking the central platform.

“It’s here,” Serana said. “I can feel it.”

Alexien nodded, and took a few minutes to pace around the room. He ascended the ramp and found yet another complicated Dwemer apparatus that he didn’t understand, but there were two receptacles that told him immediately they were in the right place: one made to hold a spherical object, and one to hold a cube.

“The round one for tuning, the edged one for inscribing,” he muttered. He hesitated only a moment, then pulled out the attunement sphere again and placed it in the mechanism, and then set the cube – the _lexicon_ – in its place as well. They both fit perfectly, as he had known they would.

At once the room came to life. The was a hiss of steam and a grinding of ancient gears, and three huge metallic arms came down out of the ceiling, whirling around the room in great circles. From overhead they slowly lowered down a large blue crystal, and when it was just over the central platform, they cracked it open along an invisible seam. The Elder Scroll was inside.

Alexien blinked. “That... was almost disappointingly easy.”

“Something doesn’t have to try to kill us _every_ time,” said Serana.

“Historically, yes, every time.” Alexien extended his magical senses. He felt the condensed brightness of the Scroll, unmistakable to anyone who had encountered one before; but there was nothing else. Slowly and carefully he walked forward to stand in front of it. He turned and gave Serana a questioning look.

Serana shook her head. “The honor is all yours. Besides, I already have one.”

He nodded, and reached for the Scroll. It was surprisingly light for its size – or heavy – or exactly the weight it had to be. He held it in his hands for a moment, with reverence; and then strapped it to his back in the same way Serana carried the other Scroll. Serana cast her illusions on it for him, and he gave her a grateful smile.

“Right,” said Alexien. He looked again around the room. “It still just feels _weird_ that nothing is currently trying to murder us.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I can always –” Serana suddenly cut herself off and snapped her mouth closed. Alexien could see her jaw tensing. “Sorry. Bad timing for that one.”

“Serana, you weren’t trying to _murder_ me before.”

“Let’s keep going,” she said in a hard voice.

Alexien stared at her for a second. She refused to meet his eyes. Finally he nodded and turned away.

“There’s another stairwell over there,” he said. “Obviously we can’t go back through the Falmer again.”

“Even without the Falmer, we’d never make it all the way back to the surface going that way.”

“Then our decision is a simple one.”

And with that, they collected the sphere and the cube again and continued on the way up the stairs that maybe, hopefully, eventually, led back to Skyrim.

So they climbed.

They had to use the attunement sphere once more: there was one final locked gate, with a receptacle for the sphere only on the inside. They passed through that into a small round chamber that at first they thought was a dead end – until Serana found a lever; when she pulled it, the floor beneath them began to rise (Alexien jumped), and it carried them up, up, and up, to a stone hallway so cold and drafty that it had to have an entrance to the outside nearby. Surprisingly, nothing tried to kill them here either, and they easily found the way out.

Alexien emerged onto a snowy mountainside. The evening sun had just started to set, and it cast a riot of orange and pink and rose across the sky. He breathed in the cold fresh air and sighed with pleasure.

“I think we're near Windhelm,” he said, pointing towards the east. “Maybe less than a day's walk.”

Serana came up behind him and nodded, looking elsewhere. He followed her gaze towards the south and saw a small farmstead nestled up against the foot of the mountain, smoke rising from its chimney.

“Go ahead and set up camp here,” she said in a flat voice. “I’ll... be back later.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Just... famished. I'm a vampire, in case you forgot.” Her gaze never left the column of smoke.

“No, I know that,” he said slowly. “I meant, are you _all right_?”

She glanced back at him for a moment. “I'm still in control, if that's what you're asking. I won't hurt anyone.”

“Just be careful,” he said. “This near a major city, there could be Dawnguard or Vigilants around.” She didn’t reply. Alexien was suddenly nervous. “I’ll see you later, then?” he asked, in a tone of forced calm.

Serana nodded absently, and disappeared into the gathering night. And Alexien was left alone. To keep himself busy he set up camp, and waited.

* * *

In his dream he found himself back in that stretching darkness, with nothing to see or hear or feel. Again a greenish haze condensed, and that horrible eye, shadows writhing around it, opened and stared into him. Somehow he knew that it was pleased – pleased, and amused.

 **“** **You have done well, my seeker,”** came that dreadful voice, like a sickening caress.

“You lied to me,” said Alexien.

He expected anger, but the sensation of that presence only grew more amused. When it spoke, its words were slow and careful, and weighed with meaning. **“Hermaeus Mora does not lie, mortal.”**

“But that doesn’t mean you tell the truth,” he said. He couldn’t keep the note of accusation out of his voice. “You said you were only offering a free gift. ‘Unrequited and unbound’ – those were your words.”

 **“** **And so I was, and** **so I** **do. The** **lexicon will open the Dwemer lockbox, and what lies inside is yours, as I promised** **you** **. I lay no claim on you for what use you make of it; it is enough for me that its knowledge be loosed again into the world.”** Alexien _felt_ that dark presence suddenly smile, and his whole body shuddered. **“But I never promised freely to help you obtain an Elder Scroll.”**

“The one was impossible without the other. You knew that I couldn’t claim your ‘free gift’ without accepting your help elsewhere.”

 **“The accidents of circumstance matter not to my given word.** **Nothing untrue have I spoken** **. It was you, mortal, who freely** **availed yourself of** **help that you knew** **perfectly** **well did not** **come from Septimus.** **Always you** **intended to use it, and** **freely you** **chose to make use of it.”**

“Thus enabling you to bind me.”

 **“** **You are not bound, little mageling. It is not a puppet I seek.”** The voice spoke now as if whispering directly into his ear, like a lover.

Alexien repressed another shudder. “Yet you were able to prevent me from communicating about you,” he said. “Because Serana has more experience than I dealing with Daedra, and she would immediately have understood the implications of accepting help that ultimately came from you.”

The grotesque eye somehow conveyed a smile; but it was nauseating. **“** **The choosing was well indeed,”** it purred. **“But you can blame none but yourself. You** **must** **have realized what it meant that you** **r own speech was not at your command.** **”**

“You knew I would be too distracted to think about it, and wouldn’t consciously realize it until it was too late,” said Alexien. “It was a trick and a set-up from the beginning. Since – since before we even thought to visit Septimus, probably.”

The voice did not answer, but the darkness pressed in closer. It seemed to be waiting.

Alexien swallowed. “So...” he asked slowly, “what happens now?”

**“Now, little mageling, you go forth into the world my will to perform.”**

It sounded like there was more to follow; but silence fell, and the Prince of Fate did not explain. Finally the intent stare of that vile eye, the writhing mass half-seen behind it, the ominous black silence, became too much for Alexien, and he asked: “And what is it you want me to do?”

 **“What you** **are going to** **do regardless,”** the voice said. The eye closed, and the greenish haze started to fade; but the darkness grew heavier. **“** **But** **know, my seeker, that the eye of the Lord of Secret** **s** **is upon you, and that I am well pleased with you indeed.”**

* * *

Alexien awoke just before dawn. It was still dark. He had a moment’s panic when he looked around the tent and Serana was not there – but then he remembered that they were no longer in Blackreach and she was probably safe. Then he wondered _where_ she was, and had another moment’s nervousness.

He tried to shake the dream out of his head, and got up to look outside.

Serana had come back; she was seated by the cold remains of the fire. Alexien got up and sat across from her. She inclined her head in acknowledgement, but did not say anything, and they sat there quietly for a while.

“I came back,” she said suddenly.

Alexien frowned. “Was there ever any question of that?”

“I wasn’t sure you...”

“Serana,” he said, in a hurt voice. He could say no more.

She stared off at the horizon. “You were having a nightmare?” she asked; then added in explanation, “Your heartrate.”

“I... sort of,” he said. This _wasn’t_ what he wanted to be talking about with her. “It’s something we’ll have to find a way to discuss at some point. But I... literally can’t say anything about it directly.”

Serana finally looked up, and gave him a weak smile. “Ah. That. I thought... I thought maybe it was me.”

It took Alexien several seconds to understood what she meant. “Of course not,” he said in surprise. “Serana – why in the world would I be having nightmares about... about _you_ , of all things?”

“Don’t be daft,” she said. “You know what I tried to do.”

Alexien shook his head. “You’re much more upset by it than I ever have been,” he said. “You hadn’t eaten in I still don’t know how many days, and then the stress and terror, and then with us sitting close like that... it was just an accident, Serana. It hasn’t changed the fact that I trust you. And... besides,” he faltered, “besides, it wasn’t exactly... unpleasant.”

Serana grimaced. Somehow that had been the wrong thing to say. “That was _why_ I thought it might have been your nightmare. Something pleasant turning into something horrible – that’s what we do, Alexien.” She hesitated a moment. “And we dream, too,” she said. “Vampires do. And for us it’s always like that: a good dream turns into a nightmare. A beautiful sunrise that sears us with pain, a rich banquet filled with maggots and rot, a... friend who turns against us. That kind of thing.”

“That’s... horrible. I’m sorry, Serana, I didn’t know. But... that’s not what it was. I promise.”

She nodded without looking at him, and they fell silent again.

Alexien watched the eastern sky slowly growing lighter, in misery. This was not how he had wanted his next conversation with Serana to go. And the moment hardly seemed right to discuss... _that_. Not with Serana in one of her darker moods. He racked his brain to think of something he could say to comfort her, to reassure her that he still trusted her, that he... cared for her. He wanted to tell her. He _needed_ to tell her. At the rate they were going, it was all too likely they’d be dead soon, and if he never got the chance... But he came up with nothing.

“Nirn to Alexien,” she suddenly said from right beside him.

He jumped to his feet and spun to face her. She was grinning up at him and laughing, from where she had snuck over to sit next to him, without his noticing.

“By the Eight,” he breathed.

“You looked entirely too serious,” said Serana. “We can’t _both_ stare moodily off into the distance. That’s my thing right now.” She patted the ground next to her. “So, come on. Something’s on your mind. If I’m not what’s bothering you, you’re going to sit and tell me about it.”

Alexien’s heart was racing again. He hesitated just for a moment, then took a seat next to her. She gave him an encouraging nod, and they both watched the first rays of dawn rise over the horizon while he tried to think of how to say what was on his mind.

“Well, it’s funny that you should phrase it that way,” he started slowly, “because it does involve you, actually. Not in a bad way,” he added in a hurry, seeing her face. “At least... I hope you won’t think so. But there _was_ something I wanted to... to talk to you about. If you’re willing to hear me. It’s not – it can wait, if you’re not...”

She shook her head. “It’s okay,” she said. “What is it?”

Alexien took a deep breath, and felt his world condense. “I wanted to talk about... whatever this is, between us.”

Serana froze.

Alexien forced himself to go on, and pretend his heart wasn’t pounding. “Look, we’ve always got along well. And it’s possible I’m making an idiot out of myself and I’ve just completely misread all the idle flirting and friendly banter as... something else. But all that – I was fine with it not meaning anything, with it just being fun, as long as we were just... trying to pretend we trusted each other, at the beginning. And after that, as long as I only thought of you as a friend. My closest friend, but still just a friend.” She didn’t say anything, didn’t move, didn’t react at all. His heart was crumbling down, but it was already too late to turn back. “And I do still think of you that way. But I’ve also realized... you’re more than that to me. Much more. You have been for a long time. And... I want to be more than that to you.”

For a while Serana was silent, and didn’t look at him. The silence stretched on. Alexien was about to get up, apologize, slink away back to his tent, and hide there forever – when finally she spoke: “It didn’t mean anything to me either, at first. But that hasn’t been the case for... too long.” She turned to look at him. “But you don’t want this. You can’t want this.”

“I... do, actually. Serana, you’re... you’re kind, and intelligent, and... Mara, I’m bad at this. But you make me better. You make me _want_ to be better for you. Of course I want this.” He hesitated. The next second was the longest of his life. “Do you?”

“It... it doesn’t matter. I’m a vampire, Alexien. I’ll hurt you. I’ll end up killing you, or... worse. And I will _not_ let that happen.” She looked utterly miserable. “You mean too much to me.”

“I don’t believe you’d ever hurt me. And I don’t _care_ about any of the rest. You’re _you_ , Serana; that’s all that matters to me.” Sudden hope, unexpected, made him desperate. “The rest – we’ll figure it out. As long as – Serana, if you feel the same way – I don’t care about anything else.”

She gave a weak smile. “Alexien, you’re a true friend. My only one. I meant everything I’ve ever said about that, and I still mean it. And I will _not_ take advantage of that friendship because I can’t get the better of my own stupid and selfish feelings for you.”

“It’s not selfish if I feel the same.”

“It is if you don’t understand what you’re getting into. _I’m not fucking human,_ Alexien. Just _being near you_ like this makes me want to –” she stopped suddenly, and shook her head. After a moment she continued in a quieter voice: “I wasn’t just... trying to feed on you, because I was hungry. I told you before, for us the feelings get... confused, hard to separate. Friendship, more than friendship – it’s all...” she stopped again, and then continued in barely a whisper: “I was going to turn you. To make you like me. Without even asking if you...”

That _was_ a sobering thought. Alexien bit his lip. He had never even considered... “That’s why you didn’t trust yourself to feed on me, even in an emergency.”

Serana nodded miserably.

Alexien took a deep breath. But he already knew what he was going to say – he just couldn’t believe that he was going to say it, and couldn’t believe that he meant it. When he spoke, it was in a low, quiet voice. “Maybe... we _should_ discuss that, then.”

Serana’s eyes shot towards him. They burned with mingled desire and alarm. “How can you even say that? How... Alexien, you _can’t_ want that.”

“I don’t,” he admitted. “I never have. But I want _you._ And I don’t want you constantly worrying about hurting me. If... if that’s what it takes...”

“What, I should hurt now you so we don’t have to worry about me hurting you later?”

“The only thing hurting me is not being with you. Serana, when we were in Blackreach – when I finally realized what you meant to me, and the worst thing I could imagine was not having you in my life anymore – all I could think was that, if I died, I’d never be able to tell you how I felt, never be able to find out what this is or what it could grow into. But now I have. And somehow... somehow you actually feel the same. And... and there’s nothing I’m not willing to do to hold on to that, if you’ll let me.”

Serana cocked her head, and stared at him a long while. Neither of them spoke. The only sound was the wind rustling in the leaves. Alexien felt uncomfortably like she was examining him, and couldn’t tell if he was passing her test, or failing.

Finally she said, in a carefully neutral tone: “You mean that, don’t you?”

“I mean it.”

“You actually mean that.”

“I truly do. Whatever... whatever it takes, Serana.”

Her hand reached out, slowly, and she gingerly laid it alongside the line of his jaw. His heart raced, with excitement and with fear.

“No,” she said.

“No?” he asked, in confusion.

“No,” she said again. “I’m not going to do that to you. It’s selfish, and I refuse.” But she did not draw back her hand, and started gently caressing his cheek. “But... all the rest... maybe you’re right, maybe we can figure something out. If you’re sure you... this wouldn’t exactly be a normal relationship, Alexien; if you’re sure you want this...”

“I’m sure,” he said, without hesitation.

“I mean it,” she said. “And not just the vampire thing. You know I have a lot of... baggage. I’ve never... whatever this is, I’ve never had it before; I don’t really know how to...”

“I mean it, too,” he said. He raised a hand up and laid it on top of hers, still caressing the side of his face; he nuzzled against her hand, and planted a few gentle kisses on her palm, her wrist. “Neither of us is exactly _normal,_ Serana. I’m under no illusions about... any of this; but I _want_ to figure it out with you.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. Just... one more thing, then,” she said. She leaned forwards and touched her forehead to his. “Whatever else I say, whatever else I do, just know...” Slowly her old, familiar, wry smile spread over her face. “Just know that you’re the worst, and I can’t believe I let you talk me into this, and I really, truly hate you sometimes.”

Alexien laughed. “But not right now, I hope?”

“I’m still deciding,” she said. “It depends on how _this_ goes.” And she leaned in yet closer, and kissed him.

Alexien had of course kissed before – but never someone who meant so much to him. It was... perfect. It was everything he had ever wanted from life, as if being with Serana made him realize _This is what I was looking for all along;_ it was everything he could ever want in the future, as if she were the one all-sufficing gladness, the one thing which, if he had, he could dispense with all else. Serana started off tentatively, just a faint brushing of her lips against his; but he moved his hands to her waist and pulled her closer, and she melted into the kiss with a breathy sigh of pleasure. Her lips were strangely cool, but soft and wonderful; and the kiss was slow, gentle, almost teasing, but full of easy, unrushed, undemanding affection, a tenderness too deep for haste. If Alexien had been capable of rational thought, he would have sworn all his life to do whatever it might take to make sure Serana was as happy as he was at this moment. But he could only sigh her name, and feel her smile against his lips, and return the kiss.

After a lifetime, but much too soon, Serana pulled gently away. She leaned forwards and just brushed her lips again over his cheek, sweet and tender and utterly contented, and whispered into his ear.

“Mm,” she purred. “You got lucky this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thought process:
> 
> AAAAAAAAAAAH what in the world am I doing and why am I posting this I have no idea what I'm doing writing this kind of scene but oh my god they're so good for each other.
> 
> A confession: I don't normally do the vampire thing. I have for instance never read Twilight. I have no idea if how I'm portraying their relationship here is sweet and original or cringy and cliche. But this is how I read them as characters, so this is what's happening.
> 
> Also it took 278 pages to actually get them to kiss.
> 
> Finally, this is the chapter where at least one major plot thread starts to diverge from canon in a big way. Consider this fair warning.


	17. Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you all for your kind comments and words of support! I'm enjoying writing this anyway, but you're all making me want to work on it all the more.

_27 Sun’s Dawn, 4E 201._

_Alexien to Brelyna. Greetings._

_I hope and believe, dearest Brelyna, that you are continuing to make progress in your studies. Already when last I saw you you were growing into a wizard of no little talent; and already, perhaps more importantly, you have grown into a person not a little to be_ _respected and_ _admired. I continue to be as proud of you as anyone could possibly be._

 _I’m writing from Windhelm – which_ _was_ _not, I confess, high on the list of places to which I_ _wished_ _to return. But my desire to avoid the xenophobia of the locals was outweighed by my crushing and absolutely indispensable need_ _to take_ _a_ _warm_ _bath, and Windhelm was_ _nearest._

 _My robes were also, alas, unsalvageable, and had to be burned; but the good news is that I now have new robes. In_ _Jarl Ulfric’s_ _colors._ _That was_ _all the people of this infernal city would sell m_ _e;_ _I_ _believe_ _they thought it a very witty joke._ _Nords, you know._

 _But that’s not why I’m writing: I am writing so that y_ _ou will have the satisfaction of knowing that your deductions were correct on all points. Using your directions Serana and I found Septimus exactly where you predicted he would be; and Septimus told us of an Elder Scroll to be found in Blackreach, where we were able to arrive after a long descent through the ruins of a Dwemer site, exactly_ _in accordance with your interpretation_ _. I commend your reasoning and your insight most highly; few even among the full_ _members_ _of the College could have done as well._

_For we were able to make the journey to Blackreach, obtain the Elder Scroll, and emerge again safely, thanks to you._

_I do not know when Serana and I shall next be able to come to the College, but I hope it is soon; I_ _should_ _enjoy the chance to speak with you again, before... well, before we have to make yet another desperate gambl_ _e_ _._ _I have much to tell you – much indeed that I would be glad to tell everyone, if I could – and much that I should like to hear from you in return._

 _Serana bids me offer you her thanks and congratulations, and remind you of her advice_ _to practice your wards. I am rather concerned what that could refer to, and she refuses to tell me. Farewell._

* * *

 _27 Sun’s Dawn,_ _4E 201._

_Alexien de la Roche to Sorine Jurard. Greetings._

_Well, I’m still alive._

_I’m also still not a vampire, by the way, which I assume Isran and the others (and you?) are concerned about. But then I guess I’d say that either way._

_But the important thing is that_ _Serana and I_ _found_ _Blackreach, and_ _we made it_ _back._

 _Blackreach was... the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I shall enjoy telling you about it in person,_ _if you are willing to share wine with a – I believe your word was ‘princeling.’_ _As promised, I kept detailed notes, and when_ _next_ _I see you they are yours. Unfortunately I will have to rewrite most of them: the originals did not make it out unscathed, and are_ _very_ _nearly illegible_ _in places_ _._ _The Falmer, it turns out, are bleeders_ _,_ _and their blood tends rather to stain._

 _In truth, to see Blackreach –_ _simply to stand and gaze upon it! –_ _was a high point of my lif_ _e_ _;_ _yet_ _it is_ _one which I am not eager to repeat._ _I should like your help arranging and publishing my notes, if for no other reason than to make it clear to the world why they_ _ must not _ _continue to seek for it. Doubtless there are those who will read the horrors as a challenge; and for their sake, I wonder whether it might not be prudent for us to conceal the locations through which one can make the long, dark descent. We have much to discuss._

_Enclosed is a letter to Isran, which I request you pass on. I’m not aware of anything in particular for which you may need to pre-soothe him before giving him my correspondence this time; but one never knows, and I leave it to your discretion._

_Serana bids me wish you well. I asked this time, and she is in fact serious. She must like you – how in the world did you manage that?_

_Send replies to Winterhold, but_ _I d_ _on’t_ _know_ _when we shall next be there._ _Yes, we are still traveling together. For every comment on that point I shall subtract a page from my notes._ _Farewell._

* * *

_27 Sun’s Dawn, 4E 201._

_Magister Alexien of Winterhold to Commander Isran of the Dawnguard. Greetings._

_We have obtained a second Elder Scroll – Sorine can fill you in on the details of the expedition. One more will allow us to locate Auriel’s Bow,_ _thus preventing, you may remember,_ _the extinction of the sun, the_ _eternal_ _reign of the vampire, and the_ _final_ _end of humanity._

_So no pressure._

_I am_ ~~_eager_~~ _willing to continue our cooperation_ _in this endeavor_ _. I know that you distrust my judgement on certain matters which we will not discuss, just as I have expressed disagreement with some of your methods. That should not blind us that we share a common goal and a common enemy, and that we alone, perhaps, in all Skyrim, are both willing and able to help one another._

_As such, I should like to request that you update us with any relevant intelligence you have gathered, and with the status of any missions you have undertaken. I have been quite literally under a rock for some time; my correspondence has suffered accordingly, and I am less informed on recent developments than I should like. If you are kind enough to grant this favor, I shall of course repay it, and continue to share my knowledge and my support with the Dawnguard._

_Please forward the_ _requested_ _updates to Winterhold. Farewell._

 _P.S. Know that I feel deep trepidation about this, but Serana is insistent that she be allowed to write a few words. [The handwriting changes.] I am considerably less_ ~~ _eager_~~ _willing than Alexien to continue this cooperation. I will, however, put aside our differences for now. My primary goal remains stopping my father; as long as_ _we_ _agree on that, we are not enemies. If you try to turn Alexien against me again, however, not only will you assuredly fail, but I_ _will_ _also have to_ _find a suitable way to_ _express my annoyance_ _. Farewell._

* * *

_27 Sun’s Dawn, 4E 201._

_Alexien de la Roche to Brynhild of Whiterun. Greetings._

_A series of very near scrapes with death, followed by the opportunity of writing letters to friends, makes one want to go on writing letters to all one’s friends; in the number of which I hope that_ _you still consent to be counted._

 _You once bade me stay safe and stay myself. So far I have managed to do both._ _Of the latter I hope to convince you._

 _You deserve what I have never yet given you: an explanation and an apology for why lied to you, when we met after the attack on the Hall._ _The apology, I regret to say, you will have to forego_ _; but I hope that once you hear the explanation, you will forgive regardless._

 _I was in what I thought, at the time, a very dire situation. Serana I had just met, and was bound to her by my given word of honor: we had exchanged promises not to harm one another, and indeed to defend one another if others should attempt harm (and she certainly upheld her end of the promise soon afterwards)._ _I confess also that even knowing what she was it was difficult to dislike her; but apart from that you will, I’m sure, understand the weight of an oath._

 _Then what should we encounter but a Vigilant, and a Vigilant who had just survived a vampire attack? I feared a terrible dilemma: That if you saw Serana for what she was, I would have to be a traitor either to my word of honor or to my friend, and either help you kill one I had promised to protect or stand by while_ _one I had befriended_ _was_ _killed_ _before me_ _. Deception seemed the easiest way to avoid such a dreadful choice. I regret that it was necessary, but I make no apology for_ _it._

 _None of this, perhaps, makes you more inclined to trust me again. I do not demand that you do so. But I have no cause to regret that you still live to distrust me._ _N_ _or_ _can I regret_ _that Serana and I ever exchanged such promises_ _as put me in that situation_ _– indeed,_ _very much_ _the contrary; and I am pleased that out of_ _our_ _mistrust has grown an unexpected friendship. I hope that th_ _is outcome_ _may be repeated, and out of your mistrust shall grow a restored friendship._ _Farewell._

* * *

_27 Sun’s Dawn, 4E 201._

_Serana to Valerica._

_I’m never going to send this, and you’re never going to read it._

_But while Alexien is busy writing, I also have thoughts and feelings that I want to put down on paper._ ~~_Certain things have happened that_~~ _There are people to whom I have things to say, and you’re high up on the list._

 _But when it comes to it, I don’t know what I should say. Part of me is still hoping that you’ll swoop in and know exactly what to do, and make everything right; part of me wants to shake you furiously and demand_ _ why _ _all of this had to happen in the first place; and part of me, for the first time, is so deliriously happy that none of that matters._

_And part of me is wondering how you and father will manage to mess that up too._

_You were supposed to have a plan, mother. All of this was supposed to be for a reason. You told me I would just be locked away for a short while, for my own safety, and then you’d be along to wake me up, and everything would be all right again._

_Now it’s a thousand years later, and I can’t decide if you really meant that, or if I was stupid and naive for ever believing you meant it._

_At the beginning, when you first made me go through with that ritual – did you know, even then, what it would do to us as a family? Did you know the centuries of loneliness it would bring – loneliness that I only understand now that I’m_ _ not _ _lonely anymore?_ _Or has that all been part of your great plan, and when I see you again you’ll be able to explain why it really was all necessary?_

_‘When’ I see you again. Ha._

_But I hope I get the chance. I want to introduce – well, I want to introduce him to you. Even if I’m terrified he’ll see right through you, and force me to confront the fact that all along you were –_

_Or maybe we’ll walk up, and you’ll just smile and nod and say that this was exactly what you had always known would happen, that somehow you planned it this way._

_I’m not sure which is worse._

* * *

_1 First Seed, 4E 201._

_Mirabelle Ervine to Alexien de la Roche. [Unread by him.]_

_Not knowing your current location, I am sending this to the Dawnguard fortress, in the hope that, if you are not there, they may know where to find you._

_There have been developments with Dexion Evicus, the_ _Moth Priest whom_ _you invited to_ _stay_ _at the College_ _. He lives; but if you hoped for him to read another Elder Scroll for you, you will be disappointed, unless you return at once. He says_ _that_ _he read too hastily last time, and now his vision is failing; Colette knows not whether his mind_ _won’t_ _follow. He may yet be able to read another Scroll one more time – but only if it is soon._

_Come back swiftly. Farewell._

* * *

Alexien woke with a start. It took him a second to remember where he was; then he saw the comfortable but somewhat tatty furnishings usual with inns, and remembered that they were still in Windhelm.

About the same time he realized what had woken him: a pair of burning amber eyes, looming over him in the darkness. Serana, returning from her nightly hunt. Sleepily he opened his mouth to say something, probably welcoming her back – maybe she would join him a while, instead of making him get up –

Then he realized it wasn’t Serana.

Alexien was already rolling away when the vampire struck, or he would never have been swift enough to avoid its claws. He struggled to his feet and again it turned its glare upon him. Out swept his sword –

No it didn’t. He had been sleeping. He wasn’t wearing his sword.

He dove aside and just barely avoided the vampire’s claws again. This, he remembered telling Serana, was the exact situation he never wanted to find himself in: a straight-up fight with a vampire, and at close range.

He threw lightning at it, missed; it was already literally running a circle around him in the cramped room and struck at him from behind. A hasty ward just saved him from having his ribs torn out of his back.

Alexien whirled, and met those burning eyes, and on pure reflex reached out with his mind to cast Calm.

The feeling was... bizarre. As often as he had practiced illusion and mental defense with Serana, he had never succeeded in actually penetrating _her_ mind. The vampire’s mental landscape was utterly unlike a human’s. It still had, vaguely, the same contours; it was like a familiar forest – if all the trees were dead, leafless, mutilated, if a choking undergrowth of thorns and slime had risen up in defiance and rebellion.

In that twisted mindscape there was nowhere for his spell to stand firm, nothing it could hold on to, and the magic began to slip.

But the vampire hadn’t expected him to even make such an attempt. It rocked back, and a look of confusion passed over its face; then, dazed, it shook its head, and glared back at Alexien with hate in its eyes.

It took just a split-second too long to recover. Alexien had called up sunfire in his hands, and when the vampire leapt at him he grabbed its face and poured power through the spell. It screamed, burned; its claws tore at Alexien’s arms, rending his flesh, but he held on until the screaming stopped and it fell still.

Alexien stepped back. Everything was slow. He felt warmth trickling down his arms, dripping into the floor. He cursed. Suddenly he was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the bedframe for support. Why didn’t it hurt yet? He tried to remember a restoration spell, but the shape of the magic swam indistinct before his eyes. Finally a basic wound-cure occurred to him, and he did what he could to stem the bleeding. He may have passed out, or fallen asleep, because he remembered waking up still trying to work the healing spell, still trying to force the shredded flesh to knit itself together. Slowly the flow of blood lessened. The pain started.

Someone was tipping up his chin, holding a bottle to his lips. He drank. A second bottle. He drank that too. He noticed a pair of bright eyes watching his face.

“Good morning,” he said. His voice cracked. “Missed you.”

“Shush,” said Serana. “You’re in shock.”

“Am not.”

“Shush,” she said again. “I’m no healer; the potion will do its work, but you have to give it time.”

“Second potion?”

“Alexien, you were torn apart by a _vampire._ You’re almost certainly infected. The cure disease potion will take care of that, but you’re still going to have a _really_ unpleasant day.”

“Oh, good,” said Alexien. His vision was still swimming. “I could use some time to rest in bed, after Blackreach.”

“Sure, a nice peaceful day’s rest. Except for the mind-shredding nightmares.”

“Those I could do without.” He tried to look over at the other vampire.

“It’s dead,” she assured him. “You did well. It surprised you sleeping?”

He nodded.

“You did _very_ well, then.” She touched her forehead to his and seemed to let herself relax. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Glad you’re here,” he muttered. “Stay with me?”

“I think not; you’re no use to me like this,” said Serana, but she didn’t let go of him. “I’ll be back in a day or two, maybe, to see if you survived.”

“Oh, good,” he said again. He started to say something else, but drifted off, and unconsciousness took him.

* * *

Alexien didn’t wake up until it was dark again. Serana stayed in the room with him the whole time. For lack of anything better to do, and to distract herself from a riot of thoughts and emotions, she took a book from his pack and sat to read it.

She had read perhaps twenty pages before she realized she knew the book: it was the very same volume she had bought for him at Solitude, about a princess from Wayrest. Had he been carrying it with him since then? Was this just his favorite book, or... how long _had_ he been hiding his feelings?

For that matter, how long had she?

This was doing nothing to distract her.

At that moment Alexien started to stir. Serana hurried to close the book and set it aside just as his eyes fluttered open.

“Oh, you survived after all,” she said casually.

“No, I’m quite sure I died,” said Alexien. His voice was scratchy. “I died, and this is Oblivion.”

“Baby.”

“See, the real Serana would never say such hurtful things to me.”

She poured wine from a carafe into a cup and handed it to him. “How are you feeling?”

He sat up and took a long drink of the wine before answering. “You weren’t kidding about the nightmares.”

“One of the many perks of wielding phenomenal dark powers. Look at me.”

Alexien turned towards her, and their eyes met. She placed her hands on either of his temples and looked him over. Suddenly she was almost overcome with the desire to kiss him again – but would that be all right, under the circumstances, or would it be... weird? She shook her head and focused.

“Which you, I’m afraid to say, will not be wielding after all. No traces of _Sanguinare vampiris_.”

“Good. I was going to be miffed if after that whole _thing_ we went through, it was that dead bastard that –”

“Alexien.”

He looked away. “Sorry. Poorly timed attempt at humor.”

“It’s okay. Just... remember, this is hard for me sometimes.”

Alexien nodded, and they fell silent. After a minute he got up and started putting his new robes back on. He had complained several times about the colors – azure and white, the same as the Jarl’s – so Serana certainly wasn’t going to say that she thought they suited him. Somehow it highlighted his dark hair, brought out the warmth in his brown eyes.

“Planning on going somewhere?” she asked.

“I’d rather not be caught off-guard again,” said Alexien. He buckled on his sword last. “What I want to know, though, is how in the world one of your father’s minions managed to follow us here.”

“I don’t think he did,” said Serana. She had been pondering this. “There’s no way we were followed through Blackreach, and it’s not likely that someone would have just stumbled onto our trail once we got back to the surface.”

Alexien frowned and looked at her. “Waiting for us in Windhelm, then?”

“Not only Windhelm, I bet. If my father knew we’d be coming here again, he would have had a whole troop waiting to ambush you, and you’d be dead. No, I suspect he has a couple of retainers stationed in all the major holds of Skyrim, and probably a lot of the larger towns, just in case we happen to stop by.”

“He has the resources to do that?”

Serana nodded.

“Well... that’s not good. We’ll have to do something about that.”

“We can’t be everywhere at once.”

Alexien scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I was thinking the Dawnguard. Maybe alert someone from the College.”

Serana made a face. “I’d prefer the College.”

“I know, so would I, but... the Dawnguard aren’t _that_ bad. And this is exactly the kind of situation in which they’d be useful.”

“I know they’re... friends of yours,” said Serana, hesitantly, “but I don’t like the idea of setting them loose to hunt down vampires throughout Skyrim. They’d exterminate all of my kind without a second thought, and they wouldn’t care whether it’s actually Harkon’s followers, or just some unlucky farmhand or housewife who was infected by accident and is still trying to figure out how not to get killed.”

“That’s... a good point,” said Alexien, surprised. “I hadn’t considered it from that angle before.”

“And they wanted to kill _me_ , Alexien, and I was trying to _help_ them. I’m sure they still do, actually. And I bet they still don’t trust _you_ just because you’re with me.”

“Hence the letter-writing campaign last night.” He looked thoughtful a moment. “I _have_ already told Isran that it might be wise to moderate his approach: we don’t want to drive all the, er, _relatively_ harmless vampires in Skyrim into Harkon’s camp from desperation.”

“And how receptive was he of that?”

“Words like ‘insane’ were used.” He tapped his chin. “Still. The College doesn’t have the resources, or probably the inclination, to send people throughout Skyrim on this kind of mission. If the alternative is leaving your father’s retainers undisturbed to spy and to plot in every major town – it might be worth risking the Dawnguard. If we ask for their help cautiously.” He hesitated. “And... and you know I’d never let them hurt you.”

Serana glanced at him. “I’m not sure you could stop them, without bloodshed.”

“Like I said.” Alexien gave her a serious look and was silent a moment. “Huh, maybe you _did_ enthrall me.”

She gave a forced laugh. He sat next to her and they were quiet together a while.

 _I know you wouldn’t, and_ _I won’t let anyone hurt you either._ Why was that so hard to say? She had said much stronger than that, before they’d brought all this out into the open. Somehow talking about it had made it more real, and more fragile. She wondered if Alexien was finding it as strange as she was.

Suddenly he reached over and picked up the book. “What were you reading?” he asked. Then a flash of recognition crossed his face.

“I was just... wondering how long you’d been carrying that with you,” said Serana.

“Since Solitude.” He glanced up at her face and saw that there was more to the question. He coughed. “It was... it was in Solitude that I first started to think you... might not be all that bad after all.”

“Because I gave you a book?”

“Among other things. But it was a book about _home,_ Serana. I had mentioned to you exactly once, in passing, when you had a lot else on your mind, that I was from Wayrest; and you _remembered,_ and without making a big deal of it you gave me something you thought would remind me of home. That’s... not many people have been that thoughtful to me.” He looked at her again and gave an awkward smile. “And I guess now is when you tell me that you had planned none of that, and you just picked the book at random.”

“Neither,” said Serana. She reached over and took his hand, and smiled innocently. “I just have a gift for emotionally manipulating hopeless rubes. And look, it worked.”

Alexien laughed and squeezed her hand back. “Better than you intended, I think.”

“Better... than I had hoped, anyway.” Serana looked away. “Home, you said – you still consider Wayrest home?”

He put on the sarcastic tone she knew he used when he was pretending not to be serious. “Well, you know how Bretons are, with our petty local loyalties and such. And I _am_ sworn to defend it, technically.”

“Sworn to defend it?” Serana looked confused a moment. “I don’t – wait. Alexien, are you a _knight_?”

He looked suddenly uncomfortable. “It’s not a big deal. Almost every noble’s son in Wayrest is inducted into some order or other. It’s about status as much as anything else.”

“You still do all the vows, though? Defend the innocent, smite the wicked, give succor to the needy, all that? Like in the stories?”

Alexien flushed. “Not that I’m much good at any of that, but yes, we still do the vows.”

“So all this time I should have been calling you Sir Alexien?”

“Please don’t.”

“Whatever you say, Sir Knight.”

“If you want to be _proper_ ,” he said, clearly annoyed despite himself, “the correct form of address would be Lord Sir Alexien Percival de la Roche, Order of the Rose, heir to the marquisate of some-damn-place and the barony of no-one-cares.”

“Your middle name is Percival?”

Alexien flushed deeper. “Serana, please.”

“Hm. You never wear shining armor, though. But I guess it does explain why you rely on your sword so much, for a mage.”

He shrugged as if nonchalantly. “That’s just a status thing, too. Any noble would die of shame if their heir couldn’t fence competently. It just so happens that this particular status-obsession isn’t entirely useless.”

Serana rolled her eyes. “So,” she said, “High Rock is home – but you hate its politics, you hate its markers of social status, you hate its self-important nobility, you hate its attitude to magic. Is there anything from home you _do_ miss?”

“Of course. Many things.” Serana gave him a pointed look, and Alexien thought a moment. “Besides the basic accoutrements of civilization, you mean? I suppose... probably music. Not bards singing tavern songs – though that’s often fun as well – but real music. Concerts. A dozen different instruments masterfully played, all harmonizing together, outdoors under the stars of a spring night – that, I miss.”

“That... does sound beautiful,” said Serana. “I’ve never heard music like that.”

“Well, when we’re in High Rock we’ll have to be sure to find a proper concert, then.”

 _When. When_ they went to High Rock together.

How could that one word mean so much?

Alexien mistook her expression. “That is – I mean, I assume I at least will have to go back and visit again at some point, and I think it might be nice if you wouldn’t mind –”

“Alexien, shush. If you haven’t figured out by now that I _like_ traveling with you, you’re an idiot.”

“Not mutually exclusive options,” he muttered.

Suddenly Serana leaned over and kissed him. Their lips touched gently for a few seconds, before she pulled away slowly, smiling awkwardly.

“I’ve made a decision,” she said. “Every time you say something stupid, I’m going to do that.”

“I think you’re giving me exactly the opposite incentives from what you –”

She kissed him again.

“You know, I think I see your point,” said Alexien.

Serana smiled. “I _was_ going to say that I’d do that every time you actually say something clever, but I’d prefer it be more than once every few weeks.”

“Okay, first off: Ouch,” he said.

“Truth hurts,” said Serana. “Was there a second point?”

“You know, I can’t really remember? Something was distracting me.” He stared into her eyes for a moment, then leaned closer, resting a hand on her waist, and kissed her, long, slow, and tender.

When they pulled apart, Serana laid her hand over his cheek. Her smile was a little sad, and she said nothing.

“What’s wrong?” Alexien asked, frowning.

“Well, I’m happy. Which means something _definitely_ isn’t right,” she answered.

“Sorry, I didn’t – if we need to take this a bit slower –”

“No, that... might not be a bad idea,” Serana admitted. “Also I hate it.”

Alexien laughed, nodded, and got up.

“And on that cheerful note,” said Serana, “let’s not forget the whole ‘saving the world’ thing we’re supposed to be doing. Windhelm is nice and all, but... we need to discuss our next steps.”

“Agreed,” said Alexien. “I have some thoughts there.”

“So do I.”

“Then by all means, ladies first.”

Serana hesitated, took a deep breath. “I want to find my mother,” she said. She watched Alexien and readied herself to argue the point.

He nodded. “Okay.”

She blinked. “Just like that? I haven’t even told you why, yet.”

“I trust you and I’m sure you have good reasons,” said Alexien, shrugging. “If nothing else, I know it’s important to you.”

“I... thank you,” said Serana. “But yes, I have good reasons. I told you before, all this was her plan – stealing the Elder Scroll, sealing me away with it, everything. And I told you that I tried to find her after I got back to the castle, but couldn’t. She’s not dead: you may remember that my father _wished_ she were there, so he could kill her.”

“Charming man,” Alexien said before he could stop himself. “Does he even care about you at all?”

Serana shook her head. “I thought... I hoped he might have some shred of feelings for me and my mother left, deep down; that it might mean something to him if he saw me. But... no, I don’t think he even sees me as his daughter anymore. My mother he stopped seeing as a person long ago. We’re just... a means to an end.” She smiled sadly. “I didn’t want to accept that. But I have to.”

Alexien moved closer and put a hand on Serana’s shoulder. She accepted the gesture wordlessly.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I couldn’t find what had become of Valerica. What I think must have happened is, she didn’t tell me everything she was planning, and the part of the plan she kept to herself went wrong. That’s why she wasn’t around to – she was supposed to come wake me up when everything was safe again. I think she went into hiding, but wherever she was hiding she got trapped.”

“Could she have been sealed away unconscious, like you?”

“I don’t think so. How would she know when it was safe for us to return to the castle, then? She had to be hiding somewhere, but conscious and able to monitor events, or at least periodically emerge from her hiding to check up on things. But something must have gone wrong. She was planning –” Serana suddenly stopped herself. “Or at least, she _told_ me she was planning, for us only to be in hiding for a short time. Not a thousand years.”

“Okay,” said Alexien. “That makes sense, I think. So wherever she is, she might need our help freeing her. Then... what? The rest of her plan swings into action a thousand years too late?”

“By the blood, I hope not,” Serana grimaced. “No, I think her plan, whatever it was, failed. But from its wreckage we can salvage what we need for _our_ plan to succeed.”

“The last Elder Scroll.”

Serana nodded. “Remember, my mother knew the full prophecy all along. She knew that there were three Scrolls. The one in Blackreach” – she nodded towards the one Alexien carried – “she never had, obviously; but she knew there were two more besides the one she sealed away with me. I’d put money on her having a lead for the location of the third Scroll. If we’re _very_ lucky, she may even have it with her. That sounds like her: two of us, two Scrolls, each hidden away nice and symmetrically, with double the odds against my father fulfilling the prophecy.”

“And with you only knowing half the plan,” said Alexien dryly.

“That... sounds like her too.”

Alexien nodded. “It sounds reasonable to me. I agree, I think we need to find Valerica. There’s just one problem.”

“She could be anywhere,” said Serana.

“She could be anywhere,” Alexien agreed. “Under any random rock in any random corner of Tamriel. But thinking that way doesn’t get us anywhere. So – if she’s _not_ hiding in some completely random hole in the ground, where could she be?”

“All she told me was that she was going somewhere safe – somewhere my father would never look for her. But he’s had time to look for her everywhere.”

“Look everywhere he may have done, but he never found her. Where does that leave?”

Serana thought for a moment. “Somewhere significant,” she said. “She wouldn’t hide in just any random cave. She could be... spiteful. Given the chance, I’m sure she’d choose her hiding spot specifically to stick it to my father.”

Alexien’s mouth twitched. “With our luck, then, she’s probably hiding in a broom closet or something in Castle Volkihar itself, right under Harkon’s nose.”

“That...” Serana’s eyes went wide. “That’s insane, and it’s _exactly_ the kind of thing she’d do. ‘Haha, you couldn’t find me when I was _literally_ in the same building as you for a thousand years.’”

“I was joking, Serana.”

“I know. I’m not. It’s the one place – she would probably have thought it would be the one place my father would be too arrogant to bother looking. Right under his nose, as you said. She’d love the implied mockery.” She glanced up. “I mean, I don’t think we’ll find her in her room relaxing in a comfy chair with her feet up; but the more I think of it, the more convinced I am this is exactly what she would do.”

“It’s... a long shot,” said Alexien. “But even if it’s true, I don’t particularly want to stroll up and knock on the front door. ‘Excuse me, Lord Harkon, would you mind terribly if we took a peek under all the mattresses?’”

“Obviously we’re not going through the front door. I’d rather not have to watch you die horribly, if it’s all the same to you. I think I can get us in undetected, with a little skill and a lot of luck.”

They looked at each other silently for a while. Serana was sure they were both thinking the same thing.

“Okay,” said Alexien finally. “So... we’re really doing this.”

“I think we have to,” said Serana. “It...” She was going to say, _This could get bad,_ but she could tell from Alexien’s expression that he already grasped the danger and the severity.

He gave her a curt nod.

Serana said nothing for a minute. “You said you also had thoughts about where to go next?”

“I do,” said Alexien. Strangely he did not look relieved to be changing the subject. “And I think we need to go there even before we head back to Castle Volkihar.”

“Where?” she asked, surprised.

“We have to go back to Septimus.”

Serana blinked at him. “Are you... quite sure about that?”

“I’m afraid there’s no help for it.”

“That... I’m sorry, Alexien, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I don’t trust Septimus, and I’m concerned about what he could do if we bring him back the knowledge of the Elder Scroll; and I’m not sure that whatever he has locked away in that box should be let out.”

“I agree entirely. I’m sure it’s a _terrible_ idea, in fact. But there’s a problem: I think we _have_ to regardless.”

“ _Why?_ ” Serana demanded. “We can just not go back. I’m not sure an agreement with an insane wizard playing with forces he doesn’t understand is morally binding.”

Alexien took a deep breath. “I need you to listen to me very carefully, Serana. While you were out I experimented with the limits of what I can and can’t say here. I literally cannot explain any more than I am about to. Do you understand?”

A flash of recognition crossed Serana’s face, and she nodded.

“Right,” said Alexien. He spoke very slowly and deliberately. “I’m not worried about our deal with Septimus. I’m worried that, in accepting his help, we indirectly accepted the help of, and implicitly made a deal with, someone else. And I am concerned about the consequences of intentionally reneging on that deal, however unintentionally it was made.”

Alexien could watch the gears turning in Serana’s head.

Suddenly her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh _fuck._ ”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Is it...” she hesitated. “It’s one of _them,_ isn’t it?”

Alexien nodded.

Serana hesitated again for a moment. When she spoke it was in a tone of forced calm: “Anyone I know?”

“No,” said Alexien. “It’s not... him.” _Not the_ _Lord_ _of Lies._

Serana nodded. “So this is why you weren’t able to speak,” she said. “You met... whichever of the Daedra it was. And we accepted Septimus’ help – the sphere – right after I had called attention to the fact that he was suspiciously refusing to tell us where _he_ got the sphere. And then... even knowing that, you intentionally used it in Blackreach.”

He nodded.

“Empty night,” Serana breathed. “Alexien, this is... bad.”

“Indeed.”

She was thoughtful a while again. “And then they appeared to you again a few nights ago. In your dream.” Suddenly she gave him a very sharp look. “Did you agree to anything then?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“But they tried to _get_ you to agree to something?”

Alexien thought. “No,” he said slowly. He was silent a moment. “It wasn't exactly a good dream, by any means; but no, there was no deal offered.”

Serana frowned. “That’s... odd. The normal procedure for the Daedra would be to try to lure you in deeper – to make you think there’s a way out, if you just agree to one more tiny little thing – and then entangle you all the tighter.”

Alexien shook his head. Serana was silent a long time in thought.

“For now,” she said finally, “I think you’re right: I think we have to go back to Septimus. The only thing worse than making a deal with the Daedra is breaking one. But I need you to be _incredibly_ careful from now on, Alexien. You’re in dangerous waters. Tell me _everything_ you can in the future, and... and we’ll get through this together.” She took his hand and looked closely into his face. Her eyes burned. “I am _not_ losing you. Even if I have to fight a Daedric Lord for you.”

Alexien squeezed her hand, and said nothing.

* * *

They stood again outside Septimus’ outpost. Serana looked questioningly at Alexien, and motioned that she was right behind him.

Alexien shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go in there,” he said.

Serana looked thoughtful. “You may be right about that,” she said slowly. “Wait here, then.”

She went inside with the lexicon, leaving Alexien standing on the ice, feeling guilty and thankful and wretched all at once.

After no great while, Serana reemerged carrying a small package wrapped in cloth. As she walked towards Alexien she unwrapped the item.

“It’s just a book,” she said, bemused. She started to open the cover.

“No!” Alexien cried, and reached out and slammed the book shut.

As soon as he touched it, he heard the dark echo of laughter.

“This belongs to my acquaintance,” he told Serana apologetically. “I think it’s best if I take this. I...” he shook his head. “I can’t say anything else. But I should be the one to carry this.”

Serana nodded slowly. “Be careful?”

“I promise.”

Serana handed him the book, and he quickly stuffed it away in his pack, and they moved on.

“Right,” said Serana. “Back to the mainland, then... then to Volkihar.”

Alexien nodded. But his thoughts were far away from the castle.

He had been right about what they would find in the box. And he had been right that it should have stayed there, locked away and forgotten. But now... now he carried with him the Oghma Infinium, loosed again into the world; and all he had to do was open his pack and claim it, and it would be his. All he had to do was read it.

He shut his eyes tight, and tried to think of Serana.


	18. Love and Sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: major sappiness ahead. But I fear it might be their last chance for a moment of quiet happiness for some time. Next up: Chasing Echoes.

They traveled west across Skyrim. Every night they stopped to camp, and every night when Serana was gone, Alexien took out the book and ran his fingers over the cover, and dreamed of what he might learn if he only read it, and counted the reasons why he must not do so.

For one thing, it belonged to Hermaeus Mora, Lord of Secrets, most crafty among all the Daedra; and he clearly _wanted_ Alexien to read it. That in itself was worrying. Alexien was already bound much more closely to that particular Prince than he would like, and dreaded what might be the consequences of taking one more step on that path. Perhaps there wouldn’t be any for years and years – but what did that matter? The Lord of Fate was eternal, and patient. He had promised a free gift, and maybe that was even true; but that didn’t mean that reading the book would have no lasting effects.

For Alexien also feared what such knowledge and power in themselves, even apart from any Daedric influence, might do to his mind. In the worst case, they might shatter his sanity and drive him to madness. In the very best case, he might just become that much less human, be set that much higher above the restraints of mortality and morality. Knowledge always had a price, and power never came for free. And once he tasted of both, he would be all the more willing to pay any cost for ever more, and to accept consequences, to _welcome_ consequences at which he would once have shuddered.

Yet... in his heart of hearts, Alexien did not believe that he was the sort of person who would _misuse_ that power. The knowledge he craved for its own sake; the power he only sought to protect himself and Serana, to defeat Harkon, to save the world. Surely, with such motivations, he could use the Oghma Infinium safely?

At first, perhaps. Maybe for a long time afterwards. But what the book offered him was greater than humanity was meant to bear. His first step would be innocent, and the second, and the third – but the thousandth? Eventually there would come a day when he would look around, and know neither where he was, nor how he had come there, nor what he had become.

But others, surely, would do far worse with that power. Alexien dared not imagine what suffering the truly wicked and heartless, a necromancer or a warlord, could inflict on the world if they obtained the Tome of Power, the Wisdom of Ages. If it was a choice between relinquishing the book to others and keeping it for himself, the choice was easy.

But he knew that if he did read the book, it would disappear elsewhere, and be free to work its influence without restraint; that would be his fault, and all that resulted would be his responsibility.

No, the best solution was to keep the book, but not read it. To hold it and hide it, and never use it.

But Alexien ran his fingers again over the spine, and knew that that was the one choice he did not have the strength to make. If he kept the Oghma Infinium, sooner or later he would succumb.

But _not_ keeping it was unthinkable.

So... didn’t it make sense to get it over with, and do what would happen in the end anyway, and just read the book?

That would be a nice, easy, logical, reasonable step to take. And it was the first on a road that led to Apocrypha.

* * *

The first night they stopped, Alexien found that whatever binding Hermaeus Mora had laid on his speech was no longer in effect. He was not comforted by this.

They had set up camp, yet again, in the snow-bound mountains near Winterhold.

“One of these days you _will_ have to take me somewhere nice,” Serana was saying.

“It’s not my fault we’ve spent the last two months crisscrossing the worst part of Skyrim in the worst part of the year,” said Alexien, warming his hands over a fire. “This time a year ago I was in Falkreath. They actually have spring there. It was beautiful.”

“And what’s spring like in Winterhold?”

“The snow starts to turn all... slushy. It’s disgusting.”

Serana started to describe the unchanging seasons at Castle Volkihar, the relentless grey cold of the ocean – then thought better of it. Neither of them wanted to dwell on where they were going.

“So,” she said, casting about for a different subject, “...what can you tell me about the book?”

“It’s called the Oghma Infinium,” Alexien answered without hesitation. Then his eyes went wide.

Serana saw his alarm and leapt to her feet. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Alexien said slowly. “I just... shouldn’t have been able to tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it gives away the game. Because the Oghma Infinium belongs to...” Alexien hesitated, then attempted the name: “Hermaeus Mora.”

Serana sat down. She ran her fingers through her hair and stared at Alexien for a minute. “So you can talk about it,” she said. “I’m not sure whether that’s good news or bad.”

“It _has_ to be bad. I just haven’t figured out how yet.”

“Hermaeus Mora... I don’t actually know much about him,” Serana admitted.

“No one does,” said Alexien. Absently he took out the book and laid it on his lap, stroking the cover. Serana watched suspiciously. “I’ve probably spoken to him more than any other being on this plane of existence, and all I’ve learned is... basically nothing.”

“You’re not going to _read_ that, are you?”

Alexien raised an eyebrow, then looked down at the book in his hands. He seemed surprised to see it there. “Of course not,” he said, and hurried to put it away.

“Because that would be insane.”

“Maybe literally.”

Serana still wore a suspicious expression. “Right. So what _can_ you tell me about him now? What did he want?”

“For us to acquire the book, first and foremost. He called it a free gift.”

“The Daedra don’t offer _gifts,_ Alexien.”

“I know. I said so. But he was very clear and explicit on that point. A free gift, unrequited and unbound, released from all recompense or return.” Alexien shook his head. “It was a lure to distract me, so I didn’t notice it was his help that led us to the Elder Scroll; and it worked. But Hermaeus Mora is known to keep to the letter of his word.”

“I doubt it,” said Serana. “If one of the Daedra gives you something or does you a favor, they _will_ collect.”

“I think he already has,” said Alexien. “The book is out in the world again. I think that was the implicit deal: we get help with the Elder Scroll, and in return we put the Oghma Infinium back into circulation, so to speak. I’m not sure he cares as much _who_ uses it, as long as it gets used.”

Serana frowned. “You’re not exactly making me feel better about this.”

“Trust me, I know.”

“Leaving that aside for now, then – when you saw him last time, what did he want?”

“That’s... the part I especially don’t like,” said Alexien. “He said something vague and grand about going forth to perform his will – which means, apparently, doing what we were already going to do anyway.”

Serana was silent a moment. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “What does Hermaeus Mora care about stopping my father?”

“Probably nothing, but he’s... not the most scrutable of the Princes.”

“So, he tricks you, binds you, and commands you to do what you’re going to do anyway; then he rewards you with a book, and graciously consents to remove the binding.” Serana ran a hand through her hair again. “What in Oblivion is that supposed to mean?”

“I think,” said Alexien slowly, “it means that he’s confident I’m going to do exactly what he wants anyway, regardless of how much we talk about it, regardless of how hard we try not to. That we won’t figure it out until it’s already too late.”

Serana said nothing to that. It was a horrible, a dreadful thought – and she knew it was true. Finally she asked: “So what _is_ the Oghma Infinium?”

“It’s... hard to explain. It’s an artifact created by Hermaeus Mora, and it contains a measure of his own secret knowledge and hidden power, which it is said to bestow on those who read it. Provided reading it doesn’t rip their minds apart. It shows up periodically throughout history – at pivotal moments in history, according to some, where Hermaeus Mora uses it to influence events in the direction he wants. I think it last appeared during the Oblivion Crisis, but there are conflicting accounts of who possessed it then and what they did or didn’t do with it.”

“I’m starting to understand why someone locked it in a Dwemer vault that could only be opened with an Elder Scroll. And I’m starting to think we should have left it there. But I still don’t know whether we had much choice.” She bit her lip. “Just... promise me you’re not planning on using it, Alexien. You’re not, are you?”

“Of course not,” Alexien said easily. He was almost certain that he meant it.

“Because it’s a terrible idea,” said Serana, in a hard voice. After a second she added: “And I told you already, I’m not losing you. Not to anything, especially not to this.”

Alexien waved a hand dismissively. “These days I’m exposed to stronger temptations. My present company, in particular.”

“I’m not joking.”

“I’m not either,” said Alexien. He was silent a moment. “I’m not going to lie to you and say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, that I haven’t wondered what I could do with what’s in that book. But I mean it, Serana: you’re more important to me. As long as... as long as you’ll have me, I don’t care about anything else.”

Serana sighed, and her expression softened. “When did you start being so sweet? It’s not fair.”

“I’ve always been this way. It’s just... just recently I was able to admit it.”

She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hide a smile. “Go to sleep, Alexien. I’ll keep watch a while and wake you later.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He hesitated a moment. “Come lie down with me?”

She raised an eyebrow, frowning.

“I don’t mean anything more than that,” he said quickly. “I mean... not yet, if you...” He sighed. “I just want you close.”

“That defeats the purpose of me staying up to keep watch,” said Serana. She wore an expression Alexien couldn’t read. “I don’t want to risk getting ambushed again, even with the wards. But... I guess I can sit up with you. Good enough?”

“Good enough.”

Alexien went to bed in the small tent. Serana sat down close by him, just outside the entrance, and scanned their surroundings. The fire gradually died down, and the circle of light around their campsite drew tighter. When Serana knew from his breathing that Alexien was in deep sleep, she reached down and carefully brushed back a strand of his hair, and studied his face.

“I’m sorry I’m not any good at this,” she whispered. “I’ve just... I’ve spent so long...” She could say no more aloud.

 _Spent so long pushing my feelings_ _back_ _, so long ripping them up and throwing them away, so long stamping them down into the dust and pretending they were never there –_ _so_ _long dealing with hypocrites and liars,_ _who’d take_ _any hint_ _of emotion and grab on to it and strangle me with it – that_ _I don’t know how to do this. But please let me keep trying._

Alexien stirred, and Serana drew back at once and straightened, and stared out again at their surroundings.

“...Serana?”

“It was just a fox,” she said. “Go back to sleep.”

* * *

Yet again they found themselves traveling west across the north of Skyrim; yet again they passed the familiar sights and stopping places, through mountains, through Dawnstar, through old inns, through Morthal. But the closer they came to their destination, the heavier grew their sense of dread, and they knew that this might well be the last time they saw any of these places, for one or the other or for both of them, alone or together.

They passed Dragon Bridge, and entered Haafingar; they passed Solitude and did not stop, and again they trod that bleak northern coast that filled Alexien with unease and Serana with loathing.

The nearer they came to the end of that hateful journey, the tighter they held on to one another. On the road they walked side-by-side, and sometimes Serana took Alexien’s hand and held it without looking at him; when they stopped they sat ever closer together, as if taking comfort from casual touch.

When they rested, Serana would lie down with Alexien. At first she froze when he put an arm around her stomach and drew her close, and he apologized; but more and more, gradually over days, she relaxed into him. She started to kiss him – gently at first, just twisting her body around enough to be able to reach his mouth; but more passionately each night, with ever more heat and ever more need, until she would be tearing at his clothing, clutching at his skin to pull his body tighter against hers, losing herself to the feeling of his hands under her shirt, on her bare skin, and she moaned his name –

But always she stopped suddenly and pulled back, and touched her forehead to his, breathing hard, and apologized.

“I’m sorry,” Alexien answered on one occasion. He swallowed. “Serana, if you don’t – if this isn’t something you want, or don’t want yet, or can’t...”

Her stomach twisted. “By the Eight, Alexien,” she breathed, “I hope you can _tell_ I want this. You don’t... don’t mind I’m not exactly warm to the touch?”

“No. I’ll admit it took some getting used to, but no.” He kissed her softly, just for a second. “I just wasn’t sure if...”

“If vampires can even do this?” Serana supplied.

“If it’s as – if it means to you what it does to us,” Alexien corrected, “or if you enjoy... physical affection in the same way.”

Serana closed her eyes. “I don’t know how it is for others,” she said, “but _I_ desperately want _you_ right now. And I mean right fucking now.”

He nodded but didn’t answer. She noticed her hand was resting lightly on his waist, and she focused on that, to avoid looking at his face. “It’s just... I told you, it’s hard for us to separate... I don’t think I could control myself, with you, if I let myself go, and I... I don’t want... I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. This isn’t what you signed up for.”

“Hey,” came Alexien’s voice. “Serana, look at me.”

She met his eyes. She saw no regret there, no disappointment, just...

Just a word she didn’t dare name yet.

“We both knew this wouldn’t always be easy,” he said. “I don’t care. For me, it’s worth it. I want this – I just want to be with you – and as long as you’re willing to be with me, I don’t care about anything else. I trust you, and I’m willing to be patient, or... whatever you need me to be. I told you, and I meant it: I _want_ to figure this out with you.”

“But if I hurt you...”

“I still don’t believe you will.” He gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead. “But even if you do, I promise, I’ll forgive you. I won’t be angry, I won’t go away.”

 _You’re too good for me._ “You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, but you knew that already. No one to blame but yourself.”

Serana relaxed into him, and he started stroking her hair idly. “I hope you don’t have a thing for weepy women,” she said suddenly. “Because this is a strictly one-time affair. After tonight I’m going back to cold and distant, so don’t be expecting a repeat.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Alexien.

* * *

They were camping for the last time on the coast: only a short walk would take them to the ferry point, whence they could cross to Castle Volkihar.

Tomorrow would be the day. Tomorrow they would enter the castle, and either find Serana’s mother or learn that this had been a fool’s errand from the beginning.

Or just die.

They prepared for it in their own ways. Serana sat on a rock and closed her eyes, deep in thought or memory. She had gone quiet that day and rarely spoke, but occasionally she would hold Alexien’s hand or give him a light kiss as if to reassure him, as if she were worried he might misinterpret her silence.

Alexien let her be alone, and busied himself checking his equipment and preparing his magic. Most of that final day he devoted to Restoration, and mentally practiced converting healing and anti-healing spells back and forth. He wondered if there was a way he could tweak Grand Healing to use it offensively against undead without also hurting Serana – but that was beyond his current skill. Maybe if he had a year to work on it with Colette.

Or if he read the Oghma Infinium.

It was right there, sitting innocuously under a stack of other books. He could just read it, and immediately know all he needed to keep them safe tomorrow...

He got up to go for a walk. There was a small stream near their camp; he knelt in front of it, stripped off his outer robe, and splashed the icy water on his face and arms. The cold was shocking, sobering. He splashed his face a second time and scrubbed it free of the dirt of travel, and started to feel himself again.

“You know, I’m just realizing you don’t have a beard and I’ve never seen you shave.”

Serana, sneaking up on him again.

Alexien shrugged. “Bretons all have elven blood, you know. My mother’s family is supposed to be basically half-Altmeri.”

She took a few steps nearer and sat down next to him. “Okay, a lot of things about you suddenly make sense.”

“The natural grace with which I take to magic?”

“I was more thinking the smug superiority towards the Nords of Skyrim.”

“I am not smug,” Alexien protested. He started shivering and put his heavy robe back on. “Superior, certainly; but it’s more a calm, factual kind of superiority based in reality.”

“Are you sure you’re not actually an Altmer, and you just look human because of some horrible accident with Illusion magic?”

“You caught me. I’m the world’s shortest Thalmor, sent to spy on the Nords by pretending to be an inconspicuous mouthy Breton.”

Serana didn’t reply. Alexien followed her gaze: on the horizon to the north, he could just make out the haze of grey darkness that always concealed the island.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

She pursed her lips. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Alexien nodded and sat down next to her, and waited for her to continue.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” Serana started. “It could... it could get bad. So tonight, while we have time, I wanted to tell you...” She swallowed. “I’m not any good at saying things like this.”

“It’s okay,” said Alexien. “Take your time.”

She gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you. I... well, you gave me that open and heartfelt confession of... of how you feel. So. I figure I should... return the favor. You know, so you feel better about going to your death tomorrow.” Her smile faded. “That’s... not what I meant to say.”

“I know. Serana, you don’t have to do this.”

“No, I want to. It’s just hard for me. But you told me that you care for me so plainly and so eloquently, and all I’ve done is imply it and joke about it and dance around actually saying anything. So, before tomorrow, I want... I want to try to tell you openly what you mean to me.”

Alexien didn’t dare look at her.

“I want this,” Serana continued. “With you. I know it’s not easy for you – for either of us. But I want to try. If you’ll keep giving me chances. You’re...” She turned to look at him, and their eyes met. “Alexien, I’ve been alive a long, long time. I’m more than a thousand years old. And never once have I been as happy as I am right now with you. Everything that came before, everything I went through, all those years I spent alone – it was all worth it, to find you.”

“Serana...”

“And... look, I’ve thought about this. I’m immortal, and you’re not; but this... this is it for me. Whatever happens. If I die doing this with you, it was worth it. And if I... if I have to outlive you, it was still worth it, and this time with you will always be the most precious thing I’ve ever had.”

“I’m not... I feel the same way, Serana. But I’m not all that great. Live long enough and you’ll find a dozen better than me.”

Suddenly Serana seized Alexien’s arm and whirled him around to face her. She looked like she might hit him; instead she gave him a very forceful kiss.

“Every time you say something stupid, remember?”

“I apologize for my forgetfulness, my lady.”

She grinned. “Is that what I am?”

Alexien took a deep breath, nodded. “For as long as I live.”

“Wrong answer,” she said. “I might outlive you.”

He only had a moment to think about the implications of that statement, and for his heart to swell, before she kissed him again and then laid her head on his shoulder. They looked out over the ocean together.

“When I was young,” Serana said suddenly, “before... this, I thought well of everyone. My mother was a saint, my father was a hero. And I still don’t know if they really were, and later they changed, or if that was just me being a naive little princess. But at the time I knew they loved me like I knew the grass was green.” She glanced at Alexien. “Yeah, I know: We worshipped Daedra, right, so how can I have grown up so oblivious? It wasn’t like that, to a child. Some of the rituals were... dark, sure; but I thought of them as something like play-acting. I never imagined they really were what they were, never imagined they could hurt me. And if you know you’re safe, scary things can be fascinating.”

When Serana stopped talking, it was so quiet that Alexien could hear her slow, shallow breathing.

“I wasn’t there, when my mother... Even after she was turned, nothing changed, to my mind. She was distant for a while, but still kind, still loving. Then, a few years later... then it was my turn.”

Her whole body shuddered.

“I was... broken, after that. Not just because of the pain, the humiliation; not just because I felt like my soul was tainted. But because my own parents had done it to me. Because they were so kind, so sweet, so loving – and they gave me to the worst of the Daedra. It took me a while to build myself back up. Looking back now, I... I’m not sure I rebuilt myself into something I want to be. I reacted against my childhood optimism and turned bitter and cynical. Because if people who seemed so good could do something like that, then their goodness was just a mask, just a pretense, and at the core everyone was really rotten and foul. And anyone who pretended to be otherwise was a liar and a hypocrite trying to get something out of me. And that’s how I lived for centuries. I could put on a mask too; I got pretty good at... at pretending to be sweet and innocent. But I wasn’t. I’m not proud of what I was then, or of... of the things I did.”

“You’ve never been that way towards me.”

“I have. I told you, remember? When I first asked you to take me home, I... I didn’t care what ended up happening to you once we got there.” She raised her head to look at him. “I know I don’t have any right to ask you to forgive me for that...”

“Serana,” said Alexien, and kissed her on the forehead. “It was forgiven at once. And I don’t think you were ever as bad as you want to think you were. You can’t have been all that heartless and deceitful, if it took me less than a week to break through to you.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say: You’re... special. It took me a while to see it, but you showed me that some people really _are_ as good and as kind as they seem. Back then, I... I still don’t know how much of my friendliness towards you was just an act. Not much, I hope. But being with you has been making me better for real. Sometimes, Alexien, I almost... I almost feel worthy of the way you look at me.”

Alexien leaned closer and rested his forehead on hers, and gently caressed the side of her face. “Do I get to kiss you too, whenever you say something silly?”

“I’m trying to be serious and bare my feelings here, you dolt,” said Serana; but she was smiling.

He kissed her. “I know. But everything you said about me, Serana, I could also say about you. If I’m anything special, it’s thanks to you. Being around you made me want to be better, ever since... embarrassingly early in our relationship, to be honest.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “Pretty much from the first moment you threatened me with bodily harm.”

She laughed. “I _wanted_ to like you from the beginning, you know. You seemed kind, you made me laugh, you were helpful... and you didn’t point at me and scream _Monster!_ and go running in other direction, which was one of my favorite things about you. But... I was scared. I’ve had friends among mortals – but none of them knew what I was, and they all turned against me if they found out. You already knew, and you still treated me like a person, and I wanted to hope...”

“It was the same for me. It was... very difficult to make myself remember what you were. I wanted to believe you really were friendly. I honestly _tried_ not to trust you for a lot longer than I care to say, though I failed miserably. What I could admit to myself about you was always a few steps behind what I truly felt: by the time I thought you might be trustworthy after all, you were my closest friend; by the time I consciously thought of you as a friend, you were already more than that.”

Serana answered that with a long, slow kiss. Alexien took her hand and threaded their fingers together, then brought her hand up and touched it softly to his lips. She sighed happily, and they fell silent, and sat cuddling for a long time. The sun sank down, the moons rose high, the waves came ever in, and still they sat quietly together.

Abruptly Serana sighed, stood up, stretched. “Right,” she said, suddenly businesslike. “Time to get serious. We’re infiltrating an ancient vampire stronghold tomorrow. So now that _that’s_ out of my system for the next decade or two, let’s get back to work.”

Alexien nodded, but couldn’t hold back a smile.

She rolled her eyes, and looked off into the gathering darkness. “There’s a small village near here,” she said. “I should feed. I’ll need to be at my best and most self-controlled tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll be here when you get back,” said Alexien. “There are a few final points of spellcraft I want to work on.”

Serana nodded, but hesitated a moment longer. “And, Alexien... thanks,” she said. And with that she disappeared into the night.

Alexien watched her go, and sat in thought. Then he made a decision. He went back to his pile of books.

Come what may, he would _not_ let anything happen to Serana. She valued him, trusted him; and by the all the gods he would live up to that trust. He would see her through this. And he could do it. He could make sure that she remained safe, and whole, and happy.

He took out the Oghma Infinium, and hesitated – but only for a moment.

To Oblivion with the consequences. For Serana, he would accept them.

He opened the book.

A brief glimpse he had, of eldritch diagrams and forgotten script –

of impossible forms and blasphemous shapes –

of swirling darkness and light invisible –

and the fabric of reality shimmered, and broke, before him.

Alexien never found words in any language for what he saw. Indeed, he found by comparing accounts that no two people ever saw the same thing when they looked into the Oghma Infinium; but the mind of each interpreted its contents according to the measure of their knowledge and sentiment. But later, after much trial and effort, he wrote a short account that he claimed gave a faint impression, like the last reverberation of a distant echo, of what had appeared to him:

 _Once there was a great tree of oak. It had seven trunks, and each trunk had seven roots and seven branches; and the roots stretched deep into Nirn, and the branches rose high into Aetherius._ _And_ _so_ _the Tree bound together the world of matter and the world of magic._

 _A mighty spirit lived in the Tree, and it took the form of a great squirrel, with black fur and gleaming green eyes; and its name was Urðr-ás. The squirrel climbed up and down the seven trunks of the Tree, and took acorns from the highest branches and carried them down safely to Nirn, where they sprouted; and wherever_ _the_ _acorns_ _sprouted, magic flourished in the world, and all rejoiced and were glad of it. And there was peace and joy for many an age, when_ _Mundus_ _was young._

 _But Urðr-ás grew greedy,_ _and over time he carried fewer and fewer of the acorns to Nirn, and took more and more of them for himself._ _And in the world the power of magic withered and grew faint, and men and mer fell into despair, and they called upon the gods to have pity on them and succor them in their distress. But Urðr-ás had no pity: all the acorns he could eat he devoured, and_ _grew ever greater; and the rest he hid away, and none_ _but he knows_ _where they are hoarded._

 _But in the branches of the Tree lived a dragon, whose name no story tells. The Nameless Dragon pitied men and mer, and high in Aetherius he fought with Urðr-ás for nine days and nine nights, and the sound of their battle broke the earth and churned the seas._ _In the end the Dragon had the victory, and Urðr-ás fled, and was forced to drop the last of the acorns he had stolen. This acorn fell to Nirn and sprouted, and grew into a seedling; and from this seedling comes all the magic_ _in_ _Tamriel._

 _But Urðr-ás fled and hid, and none know where is his hiding place. But in his lair of hoarded magic he sits, and hates the world and the Dragon, and envies all magic that is not his own. And there is none_ _now_ _left to bring down the seeds of the great Tree to Nirn, and only the final seedling, the one which Urðr-ás let fall in accident and in haste, still lives and still breathes into the world a scent of the magic that was; and_ _still_ _he covets it and hates it._


	19. Chasing Echoes

“Serana, should we be disguising ourselves? Illusion again, like with the Falmer?”

“No,” said Serana. “The Falmer are blind. Vampires very much aren’t. You’re pretty good, and you’ve been getting better; but you’re not good enough to hide yourself from a vampire. No mortal is, our senses are too keen. And even I’m not good enough to hide _both_ of us from a whole castle full of my kind.”

They were in a small boat, which was rowing itself across the strait towards Castle Volkihar. Alexien drummed his fingers on the wood.

“So, even if I make myself completely invisible and silent –”

“They would still smell you. Smell isn’t a prominent sense for humans; you’re not used to experiencing it, so you don’t know how to mask it.” Serana stared straight ahead through the mist, her body stock-still, tense. “They would probably hear your heart too. Even if you’re muffled, you probably wouldn’t be able to concentrate on deadening your heartbeat as well as your steps; again, you can’t hear it, so you don’t think about it. Then if you so much as scratch yourself you’re fucked, because a vampire can _taste_ your blood on the air. Not to mention our supernatural senses: you’re a mage, and a fairly powerful one, so your aura is like –”

“I think I get the idea,” he said. “So our plan is...?”

“Pray there aren’t any vampires where we’re going. If they get close enough that we have to rely on Illusion, we’ve already failed.”

“Lovely. And where exactly are we going?”

“My two favorite places in the castle.”

“You’re really not going to tell me any more than that?”

“Nope. So follow me and be sure to keep up.”

Alexien drummed his fingers again on the wooden rail of the boat. He could just see the outline of the castle looming up ahead of them out of the mist, and repressed a shiver that he hoped was because of the cold. He raised his hood. The boat started drifting towards the west, away from the main landing, to circle around to what was presumably an alternative – hopefully unwatched – entrance.

“Purely out of curiosity,” Alexien started, “what’ll happen if they catch us?”

“I’ll be invited to dinner,” said Serana. “You’ll be there too.” Alexien turned to look at her, and she grimaced. “You _really_ don’t want to hear the details.”

“I think I need to,” he said. “It’ll motivate me.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ll be a ‘guest’ until my father can humiliate me in front of the entire court, so that when he kills me my death will be an example. You’ll be part of that humiliation. Everyone will take bites of you in front of me, and they won’t be gentle. Blood... has different flavors, depending on the emotional state of the victim. My father is fond of despair. So before all that, you’ll be tortured. Probably for days. They’re... rather good at it, considering they can also invade your mind. When you can’t possibly take any more and you’re at the very edge of breaking down into a psychological puddle of what used to be a human consciousness – that’s when they’ll bring you up to the main hall, and let us see each other. After that... it depends how creative my father is feeling.”

“I... think I get the idea.”

“You asked.”

Alexien swallowed, nodded. “It helps, believe it or not. I am feeling quite motivated.” He looked at Serana. “I’m sorry I... are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

They fell silent, and the boat continued skirting around the western edge of the island. The high black walls of the castle were now clearly visible above. Alexien took some little comfort that it was still day: the sun might not be visible amid this cursed fog, but the residents of the castle would hopefully still be sleeping. Instead of looking down from the very conspicuous windows right over their heads.

“No one will be watching,” said Serana, following his gaze. “I’m not sure the rooms with windows are even in use anymore. And no vampire wants to look out during the day if they can help it.”

“You’ve said you would often stare off towards the walls of Solitude.”

“Yeah, well, I’m an odd one. As you’ll find out when you see the first of my promised two favorite places in the castle.”

Alexien still watched the windows overhead, and fought an urge to wrap themselves in spells and shadows. If Serana was right – which she undoubtedly was – it wouldn’t do any good, and he might as well spare his magicka.

“I want to emphasize,” Serana said in a flat voice, still staring straight ahead, “that this isn’t going to be pretty. Even if everything goes well and there are no complications. Like I said last time, the castle... isn’t a place for you. You need to prepare yourself mentally to see some truly horrible things. Things that will certainly give you nightmares, and that might... might make you think worse of me.”

“I know what your family is; I can guess what to expect,” said Alexien. “It won’t change anything.”

Serana nodded, still looking forwards.

Slowly a small harbor came into view, ringed with wooden docks and walkways. Serana let out a sigh of relief and visibly relaxed, whispering to herself “It’s still here.”

Alexien, however, tensed. “It’s guarded,” he said.

And indeed, there were figures half-seen in the mist, shambling about over the docks, and well armed. There was a stone staircase leading up to a back-entrance to the castle, guarded by still more of the creatures.

“Just revenants,” said Serana. “Conjured skeletons, zombies. Probably thralls who died and were resurrected.”

Alexien refused to think about that. “But if they give an alarm...”

“They won’t. It’s too complicated. They’re basically automata; they can stand guard and they can kill, but that’s about it. We’re lucky: my father’s probably forgotten about this entrance entirely, else he’d have stationed a retainer or a living thrall here.”

The boat came up alongside one of the docks and Serana stepped out, mooring the boat with a whispered word. Alexien followed a second later.

“There are still a lot of them,” he said.

“I don’t think it’ll matter. Probably. If one of them tries to grab you, light it up; but otherwise don’t cast anything. Just stay close behind me. Try to look devoted and head-over-heels in love with me, if you can manage that.”

Alexien snorted, and released the power he had been unconsciously gathering.

Serana walked over the wooden pathways as if she owned the place – which, Alexien supposed, she did. He tried not to look nervous. They passed a few feet in front of a skeleton carrying a heavy axe. It didn’t react to Serana at all, but turned what remained of its face towards Alexien. He had time to notice the pieces of decayed flesh still clinging to its bones, the stringy remnants of tendons that no longer connected to muscle, and a single horrible desiccated eye. After a moment it looked away from him. Alexien let out a breath and couldn’t resist pulling his hood down lower over his face.

“Think calm thoughts and focus on me,” Serana murmured.

So he did. He walked a few steps behind her, and tried to focus on the shimmer of her black hair, the curve of her neck, the sway of her hips as she walked utterly unconcerned. He was aware of more of the things standing around them, watching him with dead eyes and empty sockets, moving with the grate of bone on bone or a wet creaking of naked tendons. The smell was almost overpowering. But worst of all was when they passed barely a foot away from one of the creatures, and Alexien could feel the nauseating cold energy of the necromancy still animating it.

But he focused on Serana, and all at once they were climbing the stone steps into a dark passageway, and the undead were behind them. Serana quietly closed the door they had just passed through, and sighed in relief.

“Okay, I was right. Good to know.”

“What just happened?”

“Revenants aren’t very intelligent. I guessed that the spell controlling them doesn’t do much more than compel them to attack anything that isn’t a Volkihar vampire. Which I am.”

“But I am not,” Alexien pointed out.

Serana flashed him a smile, and motioned for him to follow her. “I meant, anything that isn’t a Volkihar _or_ _our_ _food._ Obviously they’d want us to be able to bring our thralls in with us.”

“I’m also not a thrall.” They continued down the dark, featureless passageway. “Unless there’s something you’d like to take this opportunity to confess.”

“Well...” Serana hedged. “A bit of my aura has certainly rubbed off on you, through our... contact. You smell like me, so to speak. I thought they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

“You thought?”

“Yeah. I figured there was about a fifty-fifty chance of that working. And look, I was right.” The passage forked, and Serana took the lefthand path without hesitation. “It wouldn’t have fooled a vampire. But they’d still be able to tell that I’ve... claimed you, I guess. This way.”

 _Claimed him._ That thought was... strangely not troubling. “Where are we going?”

“The castle undercroft. Series of tunnels beneath the main keep. No one really uses them – I’m probably the only one who even knows about them. Except maybe Garan, but if he shows up I can have him eating out of my hand without any trouble. Not literally. Well, maybe literally. Ah, here we are.”

The smell of blood and sickly-sweet marrow hit Alexien like a wall. They entered a large stone room, with four passages leading out in each side. In the middle was a deep depression and then a hole like a well; in the ceiling above, a long chute, vanishing into a darkness Alexien couldn’t see through. The well or cistern was overflowing with the source of the foul odor: bones, blood, flesh, the discarded remnants of feasts in the halls above. It was hard to tell bodies apart: some had been dismembered and thrown down separately, and others had simply rotted together into a single putrid mass. The rats at least seemed to be happy.

Nearest, and alarmingly fresh-looking, was a small ribcage that Alexien desperately hoped had belonged to a Bosmer and not a child. Several of the ribs had been snapped off with inhuman force, and the marrow sucked out. Patches of lacerated skin and tissue still attached to the bones, but the internal organs appeared to be missing.

Alexien turned away and retched.

“They’ve been killing more than they used to,” said Serana, as if only mildly interested.

“Is that... uncommon?”

“It was in my day. Draining to death is unnecessary. We only _have_ to as preparation for... well, for turning someone, if we want to do it properly. Otherwise it’s wasteful. And cruel,” she added quickly, seeing Alexien’s face. “But there are always a few who enjoy it regardless. I bet this was Orthjolf.”

“I hope to meet him some day, then,” said Alexien in a hard voice.

Serana sniffed the air. “Fear,” she said in distaste. “Bitter. And pain like too much salt. Definitely Orthjolf, he – Wait.” She sniffed again, and her eyes scanned the room. “Something’s wrong.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“No, I mean it, there’s a –”

Suddenly Serana tensed, and Alexien heard it too: a fast patter of feet on stone, coming down one of the hallways. He drew his sword and called up fire.

“Vampire,” said Serana. “Shit.”

Then it was in the room with them. If Alexien hadn’t seen a feral vampire before, he may have retched again; as it was, what most repulsed him was the thing’s unlikeness to Serana. It may have been a Nord once, but he couldn’t tell if it had been male or female: it was hairless and emaciated, something about its bone structure just wrong; and its face was all animal hunger and unthinking lust.

Serana put a spear of ice through its stomach but still it rushed them, making a sound something between a howl and a screech. Alexien threw fire at it; it shrank back from the sudden burning light like a beast.

But it smelled a mortal, smelled fresh blood instead of the tainted refuse it must have been feeding on, and it leapt past Serana straight for Alexien. He caught it on his sword but missed its heart, and its claws flailed at him – until Serana stepped up behind and broke its neck.

“Damn it,” said Serana. “Did it scratch you?”

“I... no,” said Alexien, checking his arms. “I don’t think so. Why in Arkay’s name do you keep _ferals_ down here?”

Serana winced. “We don’t. It... it was probably a thrall that got infected by accident, and somehow escaped and found its way down here.” She shook her head. “If they slowly turned, slowly succumbed to the nightmares and died, and woke up down here, hungry and alone – then killing it was a mercy.”

Another dead thrall. Another victim. Alexien glanced again at the pile of fresh bones, the ribcage that he was now sure _did_ belong to a child, and shivered. “Serana... how many thralls are kept in the castle?”

She froze. “I... I don’t know. Many. There are... pens, where they’re kept. I never really saw them. If I wanted something, it was... brought to me. If I wanted someone, I guess I mean. The seneschal learned my... my tastes, and made sure they were provided for.” She didn’t look at him.

“Your tastes?” asked Alexien, before he could stop himself.

“Yes. I told you, different emotional states, different flavors. My father likes despair, Orthjolf enjoys fear and pain, Vingalmo is fond of mixed hate and lust. I... I inclined more towards –”

“It’s okay,” he said quickly. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to. I’m sorry for prying. The answer wouldn’t change how I feel about you; but you don’t have to say anything.”

Serana gave a stiff nod. “Thank you. I... I don’t want to lie to you, Alexien: I’ve done horrible things, and sometime maybe I’ll tell you about them. But right now we need to move on.”

“I like who you are now. That’s what matters to me.”

Serana didn’t respond, and set off. After a second Alexien followed.

For the first time, he found himself wondering what would happen _after_ they succeeded in what they were attempting. If they killed Harkon – what would happen to the castle, to the rest of his court? Would they just carry on as before, kidnapping, enthralling, feeding, killing? What would Serana say to that?

And Serana – what would she do? Would she just take her father’s place as the ruler of the castle? If so, he hoped, and believed, that she would make some changes. But then... however kind herself, she was still a vampire, and would be ruling over vampires.

He shook his head and shut out that line of thought. They could discuss plans for the future later. He trusted Serana, and trusted her to hear him and speak honestly with him when the time came. For now that was enough to do what they had to do, and then run like Oblivion away from that dreadful place. Being there was bad for both of them.

“I can’t wait to see the courtyard again,” Serana was saying.

Alexien refocused to listen to her. “The courtyard?”

She nodded happily. “One of the two favorite places I mentioned. My mother and I spent a lot of time there. It was her refuge and her domain. I told you she had a garden there? Before... before all this nonsense about the Prophecy, I would help her with her gardening, and she would teach me everything she knew about plants both useful and useless. And it was beautiful – even better than the royal garden at Solitude we went to together. I can’t wait to show it to you.”

“I can’t wait to see it. You two were close then?”

“Like the best of friends. I would never hesitate to share anything with her.” Serana stopped suddenly. “Though... I guess it wasn’t mutual,” she added sadly. “It turns out there was a lot she never shared with me.”

“Maybe she was trying to protect you,” Alexien offered. “Even the best parents with the best motives don’t always make the best decisions regarding their children.”

Serana started walking again, leading the way through a dizzying maze of passages so dark Alexien could barely see. “I hope that’s true,” she said. She glanced back. “You’d know, I suppose?”

“I can’t even begin to compare my situation with yours, but... yeah. My parents are wonderful, loving, kind, and preternaturally talented at making exactly the wrong choices for me. You’d think just by pure random chance they’d have got it right on occasion, but no.”

Serana laughed.

It was good to hear her laugh, good to hear her happy again, if only for a moment. While they still could, Alexien tried to keep her talking on happy subjects: “So, the courtyard is one of your two favorite places in the castle. What’s the other?”

She stopped walking so abruptly that Alexien ran into her. “Oh,” she said. “We’re, ah... we’re in it now.”

“Oh.”

“It’s... it used to look different,” she said defensively. “Less... gory. And – and remember, the scent is more pleasant to me than otherwise. Think if you were in a room that smelled like... like plums. No, don’t do that, that just makes me sound worse. And – oh. I’m so sorry, I forgot you can’t see down here.”

She lay a hand on his forehead, concentrated a moment, and cast the spell to give him a vampire’s darkvision.

“Thanks,” said Alexien, peering around. “Hey, it turns out I prefer being able to see. It looks much better when I can look.” That was... mostly not a lie. He managed not to glance down at the rat sniffing around his boot.

“I’m... glad,” said Serana, a little awkwardly. She motioned for Alexien to follow her down a passage that smelled slightly less of blood. “But yes. It was always quiet down here. I guess back then a lonely little vampire girl was enough to scare off the rats. I’ve mentioned before we weren’t allowed to go to the mainland, and I avoided doing so after... after my friend was killed. So I explored the castle a lot. It was better to be alone, sometimes. Often. So I spent a lot of time down here. With a book, or making up conversations with my favorite characters, or...” Alexien thought she might be blushing. “I’ve told you all this before, but... it’s _way_ more embarrassing now that you’re actually here. I guess I was pretty weird. Sorry.”

“No, I understand what you mean,” he said. She glanced back at him. “I get the appeal of a quiet place to be alone. When I was young, I would always grab books from the library and go hide in the servants’ wing. Our house – my family isn’t as rich as it used to be, we don’t have as many servants as the house was built for. Just... seven, maybe eight? So no one ever bothered me there. I would grab a broom and pretend it was a staff, pretend I was saving all Wayrest from dragons or necromancers or whatever I’d just been reading about. If you’re weird, so am I, because those are some of my happiest memories.”

“I bet there were fewer rats and ribcages,” Serana muttered.

“Human ribcages, probably. But there are rats everywhere. Actually, the first spell I ever successfully cast was on a rat: I tried to calm it – or encourage it, I can’t remember – but anyway it stopped running away from me, so it must have worked. That or it just thought I might have had food.”

Serana laughed again. Alexien could hear that she was still smiling a minute later when she said, “Right, the courtyard is just up these stairs. Hold on a second.” She stood by the door and concentrated. “I don’t think anyone’s out there. It should be just us.”

She opened the door, and there was a gust of cold evening air. Alexien walked beside her as they ascended the stairs to the courtyard. Serana was smiling, happy in her memories – then as she looked around her smile slowly faded. “Oh... no,” she said. “What... what happened to it?”

Alexien’s first feeling was relief – relief that Serana was just as distressed by the ugliness of their surroundings as he was, and that what he was seeing was not what she had called so beautiful. Then he felt a pang for what her feelings must be. The courtyard may indeed have been beautiful, once; but that was long past.

It was roughly diamond-shaped, nestled between the four main towers of the keep at each compass point. Alexien spared a glance for the windows above – if anyone was looking down out of them, they would be all too visible – then dragged his attention back. The entrance to the south tower, the largest and presumably main building where Harkon resided, was blocked by rubble torn down and piled up around the doorway. The courtyard itself had what might have been the remnants of paths and garden enclosures, and the layout was by no means inelegant; but it was overgrown with spikegrass and weeds and fungus, with the fallen trunks of trees that had grown up, died, and collapsed since the last time anyone had been there. A small ornamental pond was choked with moss-covered rubble. In the very center of the courtyard was a large bronze sundial draped with ivy, its base invisible beneath dead weeds and detritus.

At least nothing smelled of blood. Just death, decay, and loneliness.

“What happened here?” Serana asked. She sounded close to tears.

“Serana... I don’t think anyone’s been here in centuries,” said Alexien gently. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“Y-Yeah. My father must have had it sealed up.” She gestured towards the pile of rubble covering the entrance to the south tower. “This used to lead to the castle’s great hall – where you were last time. I would walk out down those stairs after meals to enjoy the garden. It used to be so...” She cast Alexien a desperate look. “It didn’t always look like this, it really _was_ beautiful, please believe me –”

“I don’t doubt it,” he said. He tried to find something to say. “I can tell from the layout and where the paths were that it was designed by an expert hand.”

“It was,” said Serana, clutching that point like a drowning man holding on to driftwood. “It was. Do you know how beautiful something can be when it’s tended by the hand of a master – the same master – for hundreds of years? By someone who can decide today what she wants to see decades from now? Mother would... she would have hated to see it like this.”

“If we find her, maybe she can make it beautiful again.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Serana shook her head. “I wish my father had walked here sometimes. He might be a different person if he had.”

“If he had been the kind of person to take walks in gardens, I don’t think any of us would be where we are right now.”

“You’re probably right. Anyway.” She steadied herself. “We can’t linger here. We have to find... whatever my mother might have left.”

“Which was her tower?”

“The northern.”

They tried the door, but even Serana couldn’t budge it.

“It must be blocked off,” she said. “But not by my father. It’s blocked from the inside. Which means... that there has to be another entrance. That’s good. That sounds promising, like we’re on the right trail.”

“Any idea where to find a secret entrance?”

“No. That’s why it’s secret. My mother was definitely hiding something; towards the end she wouldn’t let me near her when she was working, and I...” Serana’s voice trailed off, and she looked curiously at the sundial. “...that’s wrong.”

Alexien followed her gaze. “The positioning of the gnomon looks right to me, for this latitude.”

“It’s not a sundial. It’s a moondial. It should be set up differently.”

Serana walked over to the moondial and started pulling the ivy from it. Alexien scraped some of the dead weeds off the base with his foot until the markings were legible. There was a series of sixteen crystal emblems, representing the phases of the two moons. He frowned.

“These are wrong too,” he said. “They’re all out of order. Not obviously so; you’d have to really know your astronomy to notice, because of how the bitemporal epicycles interact with one another.” He knelt and looked more closely at one of the medals. “And the artisan seems to have gone out of their way _not_ to make it clear which moon is which.”

Serana thought a moment. “This _was_ a sundial once, when we took over the castle,” she said. “But my mother had it converted to a moondial later, for obvious reasons; she brought in a master artisan from Alinor to do it. I don’t think my father ever noticed. If anyone else looked, they probably just saw a sundial and thought no more of it.”

“What happened to the artisan?”

Serana said nothing.

“Ah. Right.” Alexien looked away. “So your mother covered her tracks. That means it was important. Perhaps she left the moondial as a clue, something that you and only you would notice?”

“Possibly. It’s the sort of thing she’d do. And the emblems...”

Alexien laughed suddenly. “It’s a puzzle,” he said, grinning. “Nothing magical involved, just knowledge and cleverness. It doesn’t matter how powerful you are or how many lackeys you have. Sixteen different emblems in any possible order means there’s a _shocking_ number of ways to get it wrong, there’s no way anyone could figure it out by chance. And to even start trying you’d have to notice that something was off to begin with.”

“Which my mother and I were the only people at the castle who would,” Serana said, eyes wide. “She taught me astronomy all the time when we were out in the garden at night. I never understood the point, but...” She looked down at the emblems. “I know this. I can do this.”

“Then I will stand here and applaud your efforts. Silently.”

“More silently, please,” said Serana, concentrating. She stared down for a minute, her eyes darting back and forth around the dial. All at once she sprang into motion, lifting one emblem and replacing it with another, turning others to make them right-side up, leaving gaps that she gradually filled from elsewhere. She dropped one final medal into place, shook her head, and switched it with another a few steps away. Nothing happened. Serana frowned. Then she realized one emblem was wrong, superfluous; she leapt on it and pulled it up, tossed it aside.

Instantly there was a grating sound of stone on stone, and the whole dial spun around. It revealed a trap door and a ladder down into a dark tunnel beneath.

“Ha!” said Serana. “Knowledge and cleverness win every time.”

“I don’t think I have ever been as attracted to you as I am right now.”

She smirked. “I know. Later.”

With that, she jumped straight down into the darkness. Alexien heard her land only after several seconds, cursed, and started to climb down the ladder after her.

Without the enchanted darkvision, Alexien could have seen nothing at all; even with it he could only just make out the outline of Serana in front of him, darker than the rest of the shadows. The tunnel was narrow, and they could only walk one behind the other. Several times Alexien felt his shoulders scraping against a wall, and had the horrible thought that the tunnel was closing in on them. Once Serana had to stoop lest she strike her head on the ceiling.

At last Serana came to a heavy wooden door, iron-bound, and flung it open with hasty relief. Light sprung up around them, faint but almost blinding after the pitch darkness. Alexien had already raised a ward and stepped forwards to cover Serana, when he realized it was just fire, enchanted to flare up whenever someone entered the room.

He looked around. The room was small, and grim. The only light was an eerie green flame – copper, then, for some alchemical purpose Alexien couldn’t guess – flickering behind an iron grate. Near it was a stone table covered with a mess of instruments and artifacts, among which he noticed a silver bowl and silver knife, somehow untarnished. He cast a glance around the rest of the room. The walls were studded with manacles set into the stone every few feet; two four-sided pillars in the middle of the room held eight more places to bind victims.

“More thralls?” Alexien guessed. “For food, so she didn’t have to leave the tower?”

Serana shook her head. “In an emergency, maybe. But the main purpose was probably... necromancy isn’t your subject, right?”

“Far from it.”

“Then be glad of it, and let’s keep moving.”

Serana passed through another door, and Alexien followed her up a stairwell. It opened onto a much larger room, presumably the first level of the tower proper. Another fire sprang up when they entered – a regular orange-red flame, this time – and illuminated a high table scarcely smaller than those in the main hall, set all around with chairs. Skeletons sat at the table, at least twenty of them, some collapsed forward over the table, others leaning back into the chairs, some that seemed to have tried to stand and had fallen to the floor. In front of each, cups of red gold flickered in the firelight.

“Damn it,” Serana cursed, “that’s what I –”

The skeletons began to rise. Hands of bone rattled as they clutched at bows and spears, swords rang dully as they were drawn.

“Serana, are these going to be like the other –”

Serana moved suddenly, and grabbed an arrow mid-flight just before it could pierce her eye. Alexien saw the tip glint with silver before she tossed in away.

Silver. He noticed it now: their weapons, arrows, swords, spears, everything, were all silver. That meant –

“Nope,” Serana snarled. “Do the wizard thing.”

Alexien shielded her and himself, and the skeletons descended on Serana.

The scholarly part of his brain had time to reflect that the standard classifications of conjured monsters he had studied were sorely in need of revision and republication. Skeletons had always been described as the least of the undead: barely conscious constructs animated solely by the caster’s will, bound to relatively weak bodies easily shattered by force or magic. The same part of his brain looked forward to discrediting and supplanting those classifications, which, he now saw, were shamefully inaccurate.

That, or Serana’s mother was a necromancer of truly frightening ability.

Before he could cast another spell silver weapons flashed, swift, deadly, and precise; Serana dodged or deflected them all, but only just. She struck a skeleton full-force in the sternum, and it was knocked back across the room and slammed into a wall; but it righted itself at once and leapt back into the fray.

Alexien hit it with a burst of sunfire and it broke apart, bones scattering across the floor.

One down, a whole fucking lot to go.

Serana pirouetted away from another attack, somersaulted high over the head of another skeleton. As soon as she landed she waved a hand in a great arc and threw out a fan of ice shards, that hit the enemies in front of her and... just faded away. She cursed; a skeleton raised a sword over her, and she hit it with a bolt of lightning just before it could swing. It fell back a step; she hit it with lightning again, and it collapsed to the floor and did not move.

“Serana! Use fire!”

“I _don’t_ – _like_ – _fire!_ ” she shouted back. She raised her arms and reanimated the two skeletons she and Alexien had just felled, their bones reassembling; immediately they lay about them with swords and drew off several attackers.

Alexien deflected an arrow with his ward and struck down the archer with another blast of sunfire. Serana’s two were fighting six or seven, in a tight cluster distant enough from both of them; a fireball blew them all to pieces, friend and foe alike.

“Gods damn it Alexien!” Serana raised her arms again, and two more of the skeletons rose to their feet and fell upon the others. “Try not to hit these this time!”

Once again her two minions distracted more of the enemy; one she struck down with lightning, then leapt straight into the fray and tore the skull off another by main force. The skeleton crumbled at once; its skull she threw at another thrusting a spear at Alexien, which knocked it off balance until it went down in flame.

But the skeletons focused almost exclusively on Serana, and again they crowded around her, hacking, stabbing, swinging wildly, grappling for her with bare hands. Serana was fast – so fast that Alexien’s eyes could barely follow her movements – but even she couldn’t evade them forever, and with every heartbeat they came ever closer.

“Sorry about this in advance!” Alexien shouted.

“What –”

Serana saw a flash of blinding light, felt a surge of panic, and she was exposed, alone, in danger; she needed to run, flee, hide –

The feeling passed, and she noticed all the skeletons that remained turning their backs in flight. Alexien had cast a Turn Undead spell. _Asshole._ She snarled and hurled thunderbolt after thunderbolt at the enemy before they could escape; the rest Alexien took with fire.

And then they were alone, amid bones broken and scattered across the floor. Serana released her control of the last two. She was breathing hard, and her head ached.

“We really need to talk about your aim,” she said.

Alexien stood bracing himself on the back of a chair. “Those skeletons were here specifically to kill _vampires_ , Serana,” he said. “They were armed with silver, they went almost entirely for you, and your attacks weren’t as effective against them as they should have been. I... panicked and made a quick decision. Did I hit you?”

Serana sighed. “Not with fire. I just caught the edge of that turning spell.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it was smart. Annoying but smart. Let’s... not make a habit of it, though.” She looked around. “I think you’re right. These aren’t like the revenants that were guarding the dock; they were here to attack _anyone_ who came this way, _especially_ vampires. We’re on the right track: my mother must have been hiding something that she didn’t want the rest of the court to find.”

“Of course,” said Alexien. “Something’s trying to kill us, so obviously we’re going the right way.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you think...” he hesitated. “Do you think these were the people held in the last room?”

“Some of them. More were probably... well, I’m sure we’ll find out higher up.”

“Great. Do you really have trouble casting fire? I know I’ve only _seen_ you once or twice, but...”

“I _can_ do it,” Serana insisted, “it’s just... uncomfortable. To cast a spell you have to really feel it inside you, and deep down we have an instinctive dread of fire. That’s why I enthralled – that is, seduced – I mean _befriended,_ of course – a human mage: so that you can handle whatever burning needs doing.”

Alexien rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to say something –

From his right came a sudden groaning of stone, and a gargoyle that had been hidden in an alcove roared to life, and hurled itself straight at him.

Serana raised her hands and started channeling a spell, but she was too far, the monster was already upon him, she couldn’t get to him in time. She watched in horror as its claws reached for Alexien’s head, and he stood stock-still, not even raising a shield...

As soon as he saw the creature Alexien’s gaze snapped to it, and on pure reflex he raised his right hand – not the left, Serana noticed, with which he always cast wards – and traced a sigil in the air. She could feel the symbol vibrating with power.

And the gargoyle stopped, and froze as still as any ordinary statue.

“What...” Serana started. She lowered her hands and stepped closer to Alexien. “What did you just do?”

“I... seem to have counterspelled it,” he said.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Serana insisted. “You can banish or deconjure summoned creatures and constructs, but that’s not what you just did. And you _can’t_ counterspell an enchantment that’s already been cast.”

“Apparently I can,” said Alexien, frowning.

Suddenly he felt Serana’s hand on his shoulder; she whirled him around and slammed him into the wall.

“You fucking idiot,” she snarled in his face. Her fangs were visible.

“S-Serana?” he stuttered, and tried to move.

She shoved him back against the wall again. “No. Don’t talk. Don’t move. I can’t believe – you read that fucking book, didn’t you?”

Alexien avoided looking at her face, and nodded.

“ _Why?_ ” she demanded. “We _talked_ about it. You _knew_ what a terrible idea it was. Dagon take it, Alexien, you _promised_ me you wouldn’t!”

“I... wanted to keep you safe,” said Alexien. But the excuse, however true, sounded hollow even to him. “I wanted to be able to protect you – to protect us both – today.”

Neither said anything.

“Well?” Serana demanded. “What was the price?”

“Price?”

“Don’t play stupid, Alexien. Not right now. What did you have to promise him?”

“I... nothing.”

“Then what did he say to you?”

“Nothing, Serana. He didn’t appear to me.”

She stared, face hard. “So, you expect me to believe that a Daedric Lord gave you vast arcane knowledge... for free.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Alexien muttered. “No. But I’m not bound to him or his champion or anything like that either. The main risk...” He hesitated, and Serana nodded for him to go on. She let up the pressure holding him against the wall ever so slightly. “I don’t think the power is dangerous, in itself – as long as I don’t choose to misuse it. The main risk, I think, is that someday there will come a time when I’ll need more power, for what will sound like a perfectly good reason at the time. And now I know I can call up my dear old friend Hermaeus Mora and bargain for it.”

Serana considered that a moment. “I don’t like that,” she said finally. “Either you’re being naive, or... or he has much longer-term plans for you, and can afford be patient.”

“Yeah, I think it’s that one.”

Serana cursed, and released Alexien. He rubbed his shoulder. “So,” she said, gesturing at the gargoyle, “you didn’t think it might be relevant to tell me that you could do _that_?”

“I... didn’t know I could,” he admitted. “Not until it was right on me, and then I just acted on reflex. The knowledge is like... it’s hard to put it into words. It’s like it’s stuck away in a cabinet in my mind, and I don’t even know it’s there. But then something calls it forth, and I just _know_ it; and more than that, I _always_ knew it.”

“I definitely don’t like that either,” Serana muttered.

“We’re in agreement, then,” said Alexien. “And my magic is stronger – not really in a direct way I can explain, but it is. It’s like... I have access to power I already had, but didn’t know about; but I’m still limited by how much magicka my body can channel. I think... I think I could do some impressive things, but actually attempting them would rip me apart.”

“And that makes three things I don’t like,” said Serana. She stepped back from Alexien. “You had better believe we’re not done talking about this – but now isn’t the time.”

“Understood. Serana...”

She looked at him.

“...nothing. But I _am_ sorry I hid it from you.”

Her gaze turned hard again, then she sighed and turned away. “I know. We’re okay, Alexien. But that doesn’t mean I’m not seriously considering tossing you off this tower once we get to the top.”

“Understood. On and up, then.”

They found a stairwell, and started the long climb up. The stairs were narrow and curved always to the right, which Alexien recognized as a defensive measure in case enemies penetrated the tower, so that the attackers’ shield arms would always be angled away from the defenders above them. He wondered if the original inhabitants of the castle had constructed it so, or if it had been an addition of Valerica’s paranoia.

The temperature did not change, but Alexien suddenly felt a chill grasp his heart.

“You feel that?” Serana whispered.

“Yes. But all I can tell is that your mother was doing some kind of necromancy here, which I would have known even if I weren’t a mage. I’m not sure exactly what, though.”

“I think I know what it is. It’s... not going to be good.”

“What, this isn’t the happy fun kind of necromancy?”

Serana said nothing, and continued on up the stairs.

The stairs exited onto another floor. This one seemed empty: it had miscellaneous alchemical instruments, and in a few places there were more sets of manacles set into the stone walls. In the exact middle of the floor was a roughly drawn circle, dark of color, written over with runes and diagrams. Alexien bent down to examine it. It was drawn in blood.

“Don’t touch that,” Serana said sharply. “And whatever you do don’t step across it.”

“The magic hasn’t faded,” Alexien commented. “That’s... impressive.”

“And worrying. Come on.”

There was another stairwell on the other side of the room, identical to the last, and they followed it up another floor.

Before they entered the next room, Serana suddenly put her arm out across Alexien’s chest. “Wait. Stop.”

Alexien scanned the room. It looked innocuous – perhaps an archive or a library, with bookshelves and piles of parchment rolls – and he could see or sense nothing alarming. “What is it?”

“Curse. You wouldn’t be able to detect it, it’s designed for mortals. I think it’s... psychic, probably: non-lethal but debilitating. Take another step and you’ll have a waking nightmare injected right into your brain.”

“I think I would prefer to avoid that. Can you dispel it?”

Serana considered a moment, and shook her head. “No. My mother’s better than me at this kind of thing. But maybe... do you trust me?”

“Of course. You’re not going to have me trigger the curse just to punish me for not telling you about the book, are you?”

“Crossed my mind, but no. That would slow us down. Take my hand. I can pass unharmed, and maybe we can make it think you’re my thrall again.”

Alexien clasped Serana’s hand, and felt some of her power flowing into him. He did not resist it. When she moved forwards, he went with her and took a step into the room. Nothing happened.

“Ha!” said Serana. “Clever, mother, but not clever enough.” She glanced at Alexien, grinned, and explained: “The first room, with the skeletons, was to stop any vampires from entering. Them she wanted to just kill; she couldn’t risk anyone from the court finding out what she was up to. This room on the other hand is meant to stop mortals, whom she would have wanted to... interrogate, first, to see whose orders they were following. I don’t think it occurred to her that a vampire and a mortal might be working together voluntarily.”

“Unless the next floor contains just such a trap, designed specifically for vampires and mortals who happen to be working together voluntarily.”

“...Damn it.”

As they crossed the room, Alexien would dearly have liked to stop and examine some of the bookshelves; but Serana was already entering the opposite stairwell, and he hurried after her.

But the next floor contained nothing so fiendishly clever as they had feared. It was an open chamber with a vaulted ceiling, bare except for a raised dais in the middle of the room, upon which stood a brazier burning with a bright green flame. As soon as Serana stepped out of the stairwell, skeletons stepped down out of hidden alcoves, turning their faces towards her; at the same moment two stone gargoyles surged into sudden motion.

“Right,” Serana said dryly. “Gargoyles are yours, I think.”

She muttered something Alexien couldn’t catch, set her face, and conjured flame in either hand; then she leapt for the skeletons.

Leaving Alexien to face the two gargoyles at once, each twice his height, hurtling straight for him. He raised his hand and again traced that sigil in front of him; the air thrummed with power, the symbol flared to life and then faded away, and one of the gargoyles froze.

The other did not; and even as Alexien started to cast the spell again, he knew he would never complete it before it bore him down. He dove aside just in time, and felt the gust of air moved by its claws ruffle his hair. He came to his feet and immediately cast a shield; a heavy stone fist struck it and recoiled, but knocked him off balance. He leapt aside from another swipe of its claws, eyes scanning the room, telekinetically seized an axe lying nearby – it must have been dropped by one of the skeletons Serana was fighting – and hurled it at the thing’s face.

He had a moment to feel the heat of nearby flames and the detonation of a fireball, to hear the crash of several skeletons against stone walls, and hope Serana was doing well, before he had to return his entire attention to the gargoyle.

It rushed him again, and Alexien prepared a spell in either hand. His left hand he thrust out and struck the thing with a wave of raw force, driving it back a single step; at the same time, his right began drawing again in the air the sign to counterspell it. It recovered all too quickly from his attack, and even as Alexien cast his magic it was already upon him, thick claw-like fingers reaching around his throat –

And there they stayed, frozen into stone, holding him firmly in place. The beast’s unmoving face stared at him from barely a foot away.

It took several moments for Alexien to calm his breathing.

“Well,” came Serana’s voice from behind him, “it looks like you were having much more fun than I was.”

“Ha ha.” Alexien struggled for a moment but couldn’t free himself. “Little help?”

“Maybe in a minute. I’m in a bad mood from having to cast fire. It _was_ effective, but still.”

She fell silent, and Alexien couldn’t turn to see what she was doing.

“Serana?”

“Still here. Just thinking. Maybe I should leave you here a while. I’m still mad at you, remember; and you still need to learn your lesson.” Suddenly he felt her chill breath on his neck, as she whispered into his ear: “Or maybe I should just have a little snack. Today has been quite... strenuous.”

Alexien swallowed painfully, and his heart sped up again. “Help me get loose, and by all means, feel free to indulge.”

“Letting you loose – where’s the fun in that? If I already have your permission to indulge...” her voice trailed off. He felt her body press up against him from behind, her hands on his waist, his stomach.

Suddenly Alexien thought she might not have such a bad idea after all. If this was really Serana, not half-crazed from fasting; if this was really what she wanted... then maybe he did too.

“Not saying I don’t deserve this,” he said in a low, breathy voice, “or implying this isn’t fun... but is this really the time?”

“When better? Here I am, and you’re not going anywhere.” Her lips brushed against his neck, just beneath his ear. “And you must know how I’ve always secretly longed for just a little taste of you...”

Serana trailed a series of soft kisses down his neck. Alexien shivered.

“Alexien,” she said in a soft voice, lips so close to his skin he could feel her breath when she spoke, “all teasing aside... you know I would never do this to you unless you want me to. So...” She kissed him once more, and he just felt the press of her fangs, sharp against his skin. “Do you want me to?”

He nodded.

“Say it,” Serana whispered.

“I want you to feed on me.”

She ripped the gargoyle’s stone claws away from his throat, and let him fall to the floor.

Alexien cursed, rubbing his neck. “Yeah, okay, I should have seen that coming.”

“I’m sorry,” said Serana, “I’m just not sure you deserve this yet.”

“Splendid. Out of curiosity, for how long do you plan to tease me in the future?”

“Not long,” she said, with an innocent smile. “Only the rest of your life.”

“Splendid.” He stood up.

“You didn’t seem to mind. It’s a shame we’re pressed for time, or I could have drawn that out so much longer.”

Alexien tried not to picture that, and failed spectacularly. “Alas, maybe next time. Shall we?”

Serana nodded, face turning serious. “I think the next floor should be the last. We’ll finally see what my mother was up to. Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Serana spared him one final smirk, then turned and started up the final stairwell. Alexien followed. The stairs led up to a landing, with a heavy door of oak barring the way. Only when Serana was sure she door itself wasn’t cursed did she allow Alexien to touch it; Alexien spent several minutes with his palm on the door, extending his magical senses into the room. There was certainly... something, and it raised the hairs on his neck; but there were no wards or traps he could detect. They opened the door and stepped through together.

It was a large chamber that Alexien immediately recognized as a kind of wizard’s laboratory. The exact middle of the room contained a series of concentric circles carved directly into the stone, ringed with runes of power and binding. All along the walls were shelves and tables, containing books and loose papers on one side of the room, assorted alchemical reagents and apparatus on the other. Stairs led to a loft that overhung one side of the room, with a small platform jutting out over and looking down on the circle.

There was no trace of Valerica, nor sign that any being had been inside the chamber for centuries. The room was, however, at least well lit by torches ensconced in the walls that flared up when they entered.

Alexien stepped up to the outermost of the concentric circles, careful not to cross, and stretched out a hand to examine it. “Summoning circle?” he asked, doubtfully.

Serana shook her head. “No, not her style. She didn’t like dealing with Daedra directly since – you know.”

“Any idea what she was up to in here, then?”

“If I had to guess? Researching necromancy. She sometimes used some of these runes in her bindings... but most of them I don’t recognize.” Serana frowned. “I had no idea she had a set-up like this. Whatever she was studying here, it was big, important, and secret. Not longevity: pointless for a vampire. Not raising the dead either: most of the equipment for processing bodies is missing.”

“Wait,” said Alexien. He pointed at a pattern of runes, repeated in mirror on either side of one of the middle circles. “That I recognize, or something similar. It creates a semi-permeable barrier, so nothing inside the circle can get out, but it can still work magic; and you can’t cross the barrier from the outside, but you can still send something over. Some kind of energy, usually, or –”

“Sacrifices,” said Serana, in a low voice. “She was communicating with something, and offering it souls. In exchange for what, I don’t know. But that’s what the prisoners chained below were for.”

Alexien stood up quickly, looking sick. Neither said anything.

“We should... look around,” Serana suggested. “See if we can find out what exactly she was doing.”

Alexien nodded wordlessly, and went over to examine the shelves on one side of the room. Serana sighed and went to the other side, hopefully to find some clue that her mother had left her. The moondial had been such a clue, intentionally put there for her daughter to notice; she must have _wanted_ Serana to be able to figure it out, to follow. That meant there must be more, if she but knew where to look.

First the reagents. Mammoth tusks? No. Fire salts? Definitely not. Void salts? Maybe, if she used them as part of a ritual, to strengthen and protect herself at the same time. Bone meal? Serana was surprised Valerica even kept that here. There were dried bunches of red mountain flowers, like Alexien had given her once; wisp wrappings, perhaps useful if mixed with the void salts; lavender, somehow still fragrant, and together with the bone meal...

Suddenly Serana heard Alexien’s voice coming from the other side of the room: “This... is a black soul gem.”

She turned to face him. He had picked the gem up off a table, and was holding it out to the torchlight. It gleamed black, somehow more opaque than the darkness; but its edges glowed an unnatural, unholy violet. Alexien was holding it at arm’s length with only two fingers, touching it as little and keeping as far from it as possible. Serana had never seen such an expression on his face: somber and revolted at once, grave, utterly repulsed. His voice had none of its usual humor, no teasing undertone; she would have called it disappointed, but the word did not come near his horror and disgust.

“You know what my family is,” said Serana, walking over to him. She felt suddenly crushed under his disappointment, hoping it aimed elsewhere than at her; but also annoyed, defensive. What had he expected? She found herself angry with him for finding it, angry with her mother for not hiding the damned thing out of sight. “You’ve seen the castle. You’ve seen the circle. The décor isn’t for show.”

“Knowing what kind of magic she practiced is one thing. But actually seeing something like this...” he said, still glaring at the blackness, as if it could be hurt by his scorn. “Killing is one thing, Serana. I can understand killing for food. Even killing for fun. But... by all the gods, messing with souls is just... just _wrong_. Not child-lying-to-his-parents wrong; violating-the-whole-fucking-order-of-the-cosmos wrong.”

“We’re here for a reason,” said Serana, voice hard. But her throat felt dry. For just a moment she glanced at the gem, and to her own surprise saw, in its swirling depths, her own reflected horror. Where did that come from? She hadn’t felt that shrinking disgust since the first time she’d seen a black soul gem as a child; since then, all the times she had seen her mother use that darkness, all the times she had used it herself, she had never given it a thought. How many had they twisted, ruined, condemned to Oblivion? _This isn’t the time,_ she thought angrily; angry at what, she could no longer tell. “We can have this discussion later.”

For a moment Alexien stood as if he hadn’t heard her. Then, slowly and gingerly, he replaced the gem on the table and backed away from it. “As soon as we’re done here, I’m destroying every last one of these I can find.”

“As soon as we rescue my mother, I’ll help you do it,” she heard herself answering, and realized she meant it.

He finally looked at her. The familiar smile started to spread across his lips, half-sarcastic, half-sweet; Serana’s stomach fluttered, and relief washed over her. “Right, sorry, priorities. Save the damsel – or the immortal arch-necromancer vampire-queen, as the case may be – first, discuss home décor second.”

Serana took his hand. “Thank you. I... I know this isn’t a good place, Alexien. But I appreciate that you’ve been so willing to help nonetheless. Maybe I’ll have to stop teasing you after all.”

“Let’s not make any rash decisions,” he said. “Anyway. Back to searching?”

“Yeah. I’ll check these shelves; maybe my mother left a notebook, she was usually thorough in documenting her research...”

Serana went off muttering to herself, while Alexien scanned the titles on a nearby bookshelf, looking for some connection.

After only a minute, Serana noticed a small maroon notebook, leather-bound, such as she had always seen her mother carrying. She took it down, opened it to the last few pages, frowned, and started over at the beginning. As she read her frown deepened.

Alexien stepped up beside her. “Found it?”

“Found it,” Serana said slowly. She turned a page. “You’re not going to like it.”

“I would never have expected to do so. What is it? I can’t read her script.”

“It’s... she was trying to open a portal to the Soul Cairn. One of the realms of Oblivion, except it’s ruled by the Ideal Masters – whatever they are – instead of one of the Princes. It’s supposed to be where the remnants of black souls go, after they’re soul-trapped.”

Alexien pursed his lips. “So, the circle we saw – she wanted to offer these ‘Ideal Masters’ souls, in exchange for... what?”

“No,” said Serana. She turned another page. “Worse than that. She was trying to open up a _physical_ portal to the Soul Cairn. So that she could actually go there, herself, in the flesh.” Her fingers scanned down a column of text, and she cursed under her breath. “It makes sense. If she were anywhere in Nirn, my father would have found her. This says she finally managed it. She actually...” She closed the book and turned to Alexien, excitement growing on her face. “That’s where she is: in the Soul Cairn. If we can figure out the spell she used to open the portal, we can rescue her!”

A chill settled over Alexien’s heart. “Serana...” he started. Something in his voice made her stop, and her look of excitement faded. “Serana, I’m sorry, but we can’t.”

“What... do you mean?”

Alexien closed his eyes, so he didn’t have to see her face. “The rules have changed, since the time your mother crossed over. It was the Oblivion Crisis. Martin Septim, the Last Dragonborn, sacrificed himself to close the Oblivion Gates. And now they’re closed forever. The Daedra can’t invade Mundus, and mortals can’t travel to Oblivion.”

“You mean...” Serana swallowed. “You mean my mother is stuck there.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, still not looking at her. “Traveling physically to or from any of the realms of Oblivion – it isn’t possible anymore. No one has been able to do it since Martin Septim’s death; the old spells all stopped working. Summoning Daedra doesn’t count,” he added, forestalling her argument, “because it’s only the consciousness of the Daedroth that’s brought across, temporarily, and given form by the caster’s magic; necromancy doesn’t count, because it only binds souls that are already here. But actually opening a portal, through which something can cross back and forth – it’s impossible now.”

“We have to try,” said Serana desperately. “You’ll still help me try, right?”

Alexien hesitated. Attempting to open a portal to Oblivion, if it did anything at all, would probably only get both of them killed. That certainly wouldn’t benefit Valerica in any way.

Moreover, the logical part of his brain pointed out, none of this was even necessary anymore: If they couldn’t go to her, then Harkon couldn’t either. He could never obtain what he needed to fulfill the Prophecy. Indeed, from the very beginning there had _never_ been a time when he could have succeeded. Valerica had played against him for high stakes, and she had won, and he just didn’t know it yet.

But that also meant that they could never obtain Auriel’s Bow; and without that, Prophecy or no Prophecy, Harkon might still be too powerful for them to defeat.

And then none of that mattered: Alexien glanced once at Serana, and their eyes met; he saw the tears starting to form there for the first time he could remember; and he made his decision.

“Of course I’ll help,” he said. “We just... have to be careful here.”

Serana nodded. “Believe me, I know. Mistakes with these kinds of portals can be... gruesome.” She took his hand again. “Let’s put our heads together. I promise, I won’t try anything unless we both agree it’s safe. Deal?”

“Deal,” said Alexien.

And so they went to work. There were no windows in the laboratory, and so no way to tell how much time passed; but Alexien was sure that their preparations took at least half a day. They had Valerica’s notes, but unfortunately she had abbreviated or implied several critical steps, which forced them to try to fill in the gaps as best they could. Whatever spell she had used required several reagents, but because the amounts and proportions had been left out Serana was left to try to derive the appropriate formula based on some highly uncertain conjectures and assumptions.

Alexien, meanwhile, was forced to admit that although he had promised to help, he had little enough help to give. Serana was simply better at Conjuration than him, and that was all there was to it. While she was working out the practical details, therefore, he attacked the problem from the theoretical side – meaning, he read through Valerica’s library. Presumably the books most important to her experiments had been kept on the shelves up in the laboratory, rather than the archive several floors below, so he started there.

The shelves had been well stocked with all the classic works of Conjuration. There was the fundamental (and incomprehensible) _Liminal Bridges_ by Master Camilonwe, and next to it Master Zenas’ authoritative _On Oblivion_ , as well as the three volumes in which Zenas’ students narrated his final experiments and memoranda. There were even several books discussing the Daedric invasions at the end of the First Era, with a text of and commentary on the resulting Coldharbour Compact.

Of course, nothing in Valerica’s possession had been written since the Oblivion Crisis, which meant that every one of these volumes was, for their present purposes, completely worthless.

Serana, however, thought that she had deciphered enough of her mother’s instructions to enable her to cast the spell. Alexien convinced her that they should employ additional protections that hadn’t been needed in Valerica’s day, and so he spent time drawing another circle in chalk outside the stone rings and inscribing it with glyphs of stability and strength – for if they failed, he was less concerned about the portal blowing up than about accidentally tearing open a hole in reality. That done, he joined Serana on the platform overlooking the ritual site, where she was just mixing together the final ingredients in a silver bowl.

“Right,” she said. “Base of fine bone meal, mixed with an equal portion of soul gem shards. Added to that, purified void salts in a seven-to-nine ratio. The resulting compound stirred together at freezing temperatures, without letting ice form. That’s that.”

“So it’s ready?”

“It’s ready. All I have to do now is add my blood, channel magicka through it, and... if everything goes well, we should have a portal to the Soul Cairn.” She glanced at Alexien. “I promised I wouldn’t do this unless we both agree.”

“We’ve made it as safe as we possibly can,” said Alexien. “Or at least you have. I’m more of a spectator.”

“That’s not true. You drew a very pretty circle.” She winked at him. “But you haven’t technically given me your agreement.”

“You have it.”

Serana nodded. She raised a hand to her mouth and bit open her wrist, and held it over the mixture. Alexien was struck with a moment of familiar surprise when he noticed again that her blood was black; for some reason he’d never been able to get used to that. “You might want to stand back. Just in case.”

“I’ll stand right here, thank you.”

She flashed him a quick smile of gratitude, then turned her attention to the ritual. The silver bowl gleamed in her hands as she raised it high, then poured it out over the circle. The etched rings acted like channels, and the bloody compound flowed through them and filled them up in a circuit. Serana set the bowl aside, stretched out her hands, and poured forth her magicka. Blue flame rose up to meet her.

But it took only seconds for her to realize that it wasn’t working.

“It’s... like I’m pushing against a wall,” she said. She glanced at Alexien. “Don’t you dare say you told me so. I can _feel_ it, Oblivion is _right there,_ right on the other side, I just... need a little more power to break through. Can you help?”

Alexien hesitated, then stepped up beside Serana and joined his hand to hers. Together they stretched out their arms and their will, and commanded the gates of Oblivion to open.

Again blue flames rose up, eerie and bright – but this time was different. At once the runic spirals began to rotate, and the stone floor fell away. The flames turned unholy violet, matching the strange sky they could see opening up beneath them. The flagstones whirled around and formed into steps leading down through the portal, and stopped.

“We did it,” Serana breathed. “We actually did it. My mother opened a door to the Soul Cairn... and so did we.”

“That... shouldn’t have worked.”

“Oh, shush, you,” she said, grinning. “Just admit you were wrong, and Conjuration isn’t your subject.”

Alexien stared down at the portal, a look of disquiet on his face. “I was wrong, and Conjuration isn’t my subject.”

Serana’s grin widened. “I think I’d like to hear you say that a few more times later. But right now we have a portal to catch.”

“And an immortal arch-necromancer vampire-queen to save, yes.” He took a breath, loosened his sword in its sheath, and nodded to himself. “Right. I’ll go first. The ritual was mostly your work, whereas I’m still relatively fresh.”

“Be careful.”

Alexien stepped off the platform, down the floating stone stairs. But from the first step he knew something was wrong. A sudden wave of cold nausea hit him, the urge to curl up and vomit. He ignored it and took another step, and that sickening feeling was like knives in his skin and in his eyes. He cast a ward around himself, screwed up his courage, took another step, screamed.

Serana grabbed him under the shoulders and hauled him back, as far from the portal as she could carry him, and sat him on the floor with his back to the stone wall. She pressed a potion to his lips, and he drank it without protest.

“I’m so sorry, Alexien,” she said. “I should have realized... it’s my fault, I was so fixated on finding my mother I didn’t stop to think.”

“Okay,” he mumbled. “Please tell me what went wrong, so I can never do it again.”

“Well...” Serana hesitated. “What went wrong is... you’re alive.”

“Am I, still?”

She ignored him. “The Soul Cairn is... hungry, for lack of a better word. It’s pure negative space, exactly contrary to the positive energy of living souls. That’s why the remnants of souls used in necromancy end up there: they’re untethered from Aetherius, and the Ideal Masters suck them in like water down a drain.”

“So, whenever I get close to the portal, it tries to tear my soul out.”

“While you’re still alive, yes. Which I imagine must be... quite painful.”

“It is.” Alexien started to struggle to his feet, but Serana put her hands on his shoulders and forced him back down. “Okay,” he said. “So, what are our options?”

“First, you rest a while.”

“Sounds lovely. And after that, what are our options?”

Serana didn’t answer for a long time. “You could always do the intelligent thing and stay here, while I –”

“Not up for discussion.”

“– then I can only think of two. But I don’t think you’re going to like either of them.”

“Naturally,” he sighed. He stood up despite Serana’s glare. “What are they?”

“Option number one: I soul-trap you.” She raised a hand to stop him. “ _Partially._ I learned a few tricks from my mother. Since you and I... share an emotional bond, I think I can use that as a channel to siphon off some of your soul’s anuic energy, without killing you. Then I offer that to the Ideal Masters. They would probably consider it adequate payment and allow you to pass.”

“I’ll be honest, I’m not in love with that option,” said Alexien. “Wouldn’t that leave me significantly weakened?”

“Probably, yes. But there’s a chance we might be able to steal that part of your soul back, once we’re inside the Soul Cairn. But then again... maybe not.”

“You’re making an _excellent_ case for option number two.”

“Well, wait until you hear it,” said Serana. She walked down the steps to the very edge of the portal, completely unaffected by the nauseating cold Alexien had felt. “I can do this, and pass through without any trouble. My mother could too. Because... because we’re not technically alive.”

Alexien stared, and then realized what she was suggesting. “Oh – oh. Right.”

Serana moved closer – very close. “You could, too, if... if you let me turn you.”

Alexien closed his eyes and swallowed. “Go on.”

“The Soul Cairn only affects _living_ souls. As a vampire, you wouldn’t be living. Your soul wouldn’t count: the Ideal Masters couldn’t feed on you or draw energy from you or whatever it is they do. And as someone Daedra-touched, you could pass more easily between Mundus and Oblivion.”

He inclined his head, acknowledging the point.

Serana moved still closer, and put a hand on his arm. “I’m not going to lie to you. You know I want this. With you. For us – for vampires – turning someone is... intimate. I’ve never done it with anyone before, but I _want_ to have that with you. It’s...” she closed her eyes. “Gods, Alexien, the thought of finally being able to have you, to feed on you, to _ta_ _ste_ in your blood all your emotion, all your passion, everything you feel for me – and then share everything I am with you...” her whole body shuddered in expectation, and she licked her lips.

Suddenly her eyes opened, an embarrassed expression on her face; she let go his arm and stepped back. “It’s... a lot, for us. But what I was _trying_ to say is that, regardless of what I want, or how much I want it, I... I don’t want you to feel like I’m forcing you into anything. It’s your choice: you can let me soul-trap you, or let me turn you – or you can still choose to stay here. I’ll support whatever you want to do. And I promise, whatever you decide, I won’t think any less of you. I’m not going anywhere.”

Alexien’s throat felt tight. “I... thank you, Serana.”

“Right,” she said, trying to gather herself together. “I’ll... leave you alone, for a while. Let you think it over without having me here to... distract you.”

“No need,” said Alexien. He exhaled. “I’ve already made my choice.”

She nodded and reached for a soul gem.

“Wrong,” he said with a faint smile. “Guess again.”

Serana’s eyes went wide, lips slightly parted. “Are you... are you sure?”

“I am.”

She took a step nearer, but carefully avoided touching him. “Say it. I... I want you to be certain, and explicit.”

“Then I will be,” said Alexien. “I want you to turn me, Serana. Into a vampire. Like you.”

“I’m... willing to, of course,” she said, touching his arm and giving him a questioning look. “More than willing. But I have to be honest, I didn’t think you’d choose this.”

“Are you trying to talk me out of it now?”

“No, I just... just need you to be sure. You’ve been clear, in the past, that you _didn’t_ want this. And after what you’ve seen at the castle, I would have expected you to be all the _more_ reluctant. A lot of us really are the monsters people think we are – not excepting myself: for as long as you’ve known me, I may have been relatively not-evil; but I’ve done terrible things in the past, and I could easily do terrible things again in the future, and love it. And you would be like me: you would be tempted in the same way, bound to feed on people in the same way – and there’s no going back, Alexien. It’s forever. Are you ready for that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ve already made my decision, and as long as it’s still something you’re comfortable with, I’m not changing it.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Serana. She put a hand to his cheek. “I’m this close to jumping on you and _taking_ you, _right now._ I’m _ecstatic_ that we might... might be together like this. This... this means so much to me, you have no idea.” She sighed. “I admit it: part of me has always wanted this, but until now, it... it was always a selfish temptation I had to resist, so I didn’t hurt you. I never thought... never thought you might actually... want this too.” She shook her head and forced herself to step back. “I don’t want to pressure you into anything you don’t want as much as I do. At least tell me why? What changed your mind?”

Alexien gestured at the glowing portal. “First, there’s absolutely no chance, none at all, that I was ever going to let you go through that alone. I’m with you, no matter what. And...” He hesitated. “You said it yesterday: you’re immortal, and I’m not. And I don’t like the sound of that. The 60 or 70 years I have left on Nirn aren’t... aren’t enough time with you.”

Serana reached for him, drew his face to hers, and gave him a long, slow kiss. Alexien’s hands found her waist and pulled her body against him. After the kiss she rested her forehead on his.

“You didn’t say anything stupid that time,” she said, smiling. “I just needed to do that. All right, Alexien. If you’re sure, if you’re ready... I’ll turn you.”

“I’m ready,” said Alexien. Then a look of uncertainty passed over his face. “This won’t... won’t change anything between us, will it?”

She gave a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob, and raised a hand to caress the side of his face. “It might change a lot, Alexien – but I promise, only for the good. I’m selfish enough that I would never have even offered this otherwise. It might bring us still closer together, let us share more of ourselves with each other...” Her mouth twitched. “So if you actually think of this as just a quick fling, now’s your last chance to tell me.”

“Well, now that you mention it, there was one thing I’ve been wanting to tell you.” Serana raised an eyebrow, and he kissed her. “I love you, Serana.”

Serana went still and tense for a moment, then relaxed into him. “I love you too, Alexien.” She kissed him back. “Now shut up and let me kill you.”

He laughed. “Is that what this involves?”

“Among other things,” she said slowly. “To start with, yes, I’ll need to feed on you, to take... pretty much all of your blood. But there’s more to it than that.” She put a finger on his mouth. “Don’t worry about the details. Let me handle it.”

“I will. I trust you.”

She kissed him again, and her hands roamed slowly from his face down over his shoulders to his back, and pulled him tight against her. Her lips trailed kisses across his cheek, down his neck, and finally rested over the artery. He tensed involuntarily and held his breath. She tried again, and pulled aside his tunic to start kissing his collarbone, brushing her lips up over his neck to right beneath his jaw – but again he tensed, when he felt her fangs start to press into his skin.

Serana pulled back. “Sorry,” she said awkwardly. “I don’t want this to be unpleasant for you. I’m just... a little unsure of the best way to start.”

Alexien laughed again. “I should have thought that would be obvious,” he said. She raised an eyebrow, and he went on, still smiling: “Serana, whenever we’ve kissed before, whenever we’ve been doing anything... physical, you’ve always pulled back for fear of hurting me. You said you couldn’t control yourself; you didn’t want to feed on me, or turn me, against my will. But now that’s exactly what we want to happen. So... now there’s no point in restraining yourself. Go wild.”

For a moment Serana stared. Then she flew at him and he clutched her to himself, her fingers tearing at his clothing, her mouth pressing almost violently against his lips, his cheek, his chin, his throat. Between kisses she said his name over and over, as her hands tore open his robes and pushed them back over his shoulders, pulled his shirt up so she could finally feel his skin beneath her fingers. He made her slow down, put a hand under her chin and drew her face up to kiss him; her arms flew up and around his neck, and he felt her tongue dancing against his; then she stepped back and started unlacing her armor.

Alexien reached out for her, and pulled her close again; kissed her, as if she were the only thing in the world that mattered to him; touched her, felt her, held her, like there was nothing and no one else that he could ever want to touch or feel, have or hold. He had never been able to tell her what she had come to mean to him, not as well as he wanted; had never been able to comfort or console her, not as much as she deserved; but now he might show her, show her his love, his friendship, his absolute trust in her, show her that she never had to be lonely again, if only she would let him stay by her.

Serana threw aside the last of her clothing, and again her arms circled Alexien’s neck and drew him towards her, again her lips kissed his mouth, his neck, his collarbone, his chest. She grabbed his hands and forced them to her bare hips, and when they started wandering freely over her body she again clasped his face and kissed him passionately, deeply. They lost themselves to the joy and the rapture, lost all conscious thought, and knew nothing but one another.

When the ecstasy crested, Alexien heard her moan his name aloud, and all at once he felt her fangs sink into his throat. A wave of black pain crashed through him – then it turned to pleasure, and mixed with the pleasure of her touch and her body. But somehow it was distant. He found her mouth, hot and wet, and managed to kiss her once more; he tried to say her name, or perhaps he only thought it to himself; and with a final outpouring of euphoria he slowly faded, and all went black.


	20. Beyond Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And after Chasing Echoes, Beyond Death! I want to thank you all again for the kind words of support; it means so much that so many people seem to be enjoying this.
> 
> A general update on the state of this fic: This is Chapter 20; I've been planning ahead, and I currently expect there to be 25 chapters and a short epilogue. There's still a lot that has to happen, of course, but we're approaching the end game. After that, I'll probably have a short break while I think more about the details of what comes next, and then I expect to start on the next fic in this series, which will cover the main story and questlines.

He was drowning, drowning in the darkness.

He was falling, but there was nowhere he was falling from, or towards. Just falling, falling forever.

There was a rose bush, bright and red, the only stab of color in the neverending blackness. Its beauty smote his heart. He reached out to touch it – but the petals turned black and withered, the stem dried and cracked, and the whole was blown away by an unseen wind.

Then he was walking through memories – but they were wrong, all wrong.

He was talking to Jacqueline, the girl he’d been supposed to marry. He remembered now, they _had_ met once, at a dance. She was smiling up at him, nervous, shy. He bowed, and offered her his hand; she took it. His claws tore open her throat, covered him with her blood; as she fell to the ground her young blue eyes never left his, and she tried to mouth a single word – _Why?_

 _That isn’t what happened,_ he wanted to say.

His mother led him up stairs. He had wanted to see the view from the top of the royal palace since he’d been three. Now they were there at a party, and the idle conversation, the pointless chatter, the press of people everywhere, never letting him be alone, never letting him think – he could feel tears forming. His mother saved him, and took him by the hand and led him to the roof of the tower, to have quiet and to see Wayrest from on high. He gazed out at the mountains in the distance, the roofs of the houses below glinting in the sunset, and was happy. His mother grabbed his arm and flung him over the edge. _Finally,_ he heard her say, as he fell.

 _No,_ he said, _she loved me._

_Didn’t she?_

He was in Dimhollow Crypt, waking Serana up. She emerged and looked at him, eyes blinding bright – then she leapt upon him. He cast a ward, but the magic did not come – no, he never had any magic, never was a wizard – and then Serana was on him, all claws and fangs and burning eyes, and she sank her teeth into his throat. He tried to push her away, but she was too strong; he tried to speak, to tell her that it was him, Alexien, why was she – but he couldn’t; and after she had drained the last of his life away, she tossed his corpse aside, turned her back, and left him.

He tried to say _No,_ but his voice cracked, and it came out as barely a breath.

One by one the nightmare-images faded, and he was left alone again, alone and drowning in the darkness.

Only one thing he heard, and realized he had always heard it. It was Serana’s voice. _Come back to me,_ it said.

 _I can’t,_ he answered. _I’m lost, and falling._

 _Come back to me,_ her voice said again.

_I can’t._

_Come back to me, Alexien._

And he woke up.

* * *

Serana, meanwhile, was nervous.

No matter how often she told herself that everything was fine, and she had done everything correctly, and Alexien would soon be waking up and saying something stupid and charming again, she couldn’t help but by troubled whenever she looked over at his… his corpse, lying on the floor where she had left him, hands neatly folded over his chest, utterly without any sign or symptom of life.

She had _seen_ this done more often than she cared to reflect on, and knew that the changes would just take time. And she knew that she hadn’t left anything out. But it was still unnerving to watch and wait, when it was someone she actually cared about.

Maybe she _had_ forgotten something, maybe there was some secret critical step they had never told her, and instead of turning him she had only killed him.

No. She shook her head and refused to think of that. Rationally, she knew everything was fine.

Or perhaps ‘fine’ was a relative term, under the circumstances.

Serana returned to her studies and preparations, with which she had been distracting herself since Alexien had, well, died. The first necessity had been to make sure they wouldn’t be disturbed while he was regenerating. Much though she hated to leave him alone, the top of the tower was relatively safe, and she added a few protective spells of her own; then she crept back down through the tower and up the tunnel, to check on the courtyard. As she hoped, the moondial had swung back to its original position, hiding the secret entrance. No one who looked would notice anything amiss. They had time to be alone.

After that, she examined the portal more carefully. She had been concerned that it might go out if they left it open too long, but it seemed stable: its diameter had neither grown nor shrunk, the pattern of energies around it had not changed, and down through it she could still see that strange sky unfolding before her. However much she teased Alexien about his minimal skill at Conjuration, she had to commend his knowledge of the theory: the inscribed circle he had drawn to stabilize the portal was more than doing its job. There wasn’t any energy leaking into the tower from Oblivion, as far as she could tell; nor had anything tried to cross over from the other side (assuming there even _were_ sentient beings on the other side).

She reread Valerica’s notebooks beginning to end, hoping to find information about what they would eventually find in the Soul Cairn itself. But there was nothing at all, not even a hint. Either her mother had refused to record anything in writing, or – more likely – she had never had the chance, and her first trip to the Soul Cairn had also been her last.

That was not an encouraging thought.

So Serana next tried to take her mind off her discouragement with alchemy, using her mother’s apparatus to restore their depleted stock of potions.

Alchemy, however, required patience and skill, but not necessarily focus – not to follow a recipe she had brewed hundreds of times before. Far too much time was thus left her to be alone with her thoughts. Usually that was how she preferred it; now, she wasn’t sure.

She glanced again at Alexien. Had she done the right thing? She had certainly done what she _wanted_ … at least, she was pretty sure she had. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

She had told him the truth: part of her had always wanted to turn him, ever since they had first started to trust one another. A large part of her. A part of her that she mercilessly beat over the head, shackled hand and foot, and exiled to the darkest corner of her mind; but still, a very large part. For it was Molag Bal’s cleverest scheme, and perhaps his wickedest, that those whom vampires loved, they destroyed – so that they might in turn destroy others, in a never-ending cycle of baleful friendship and ruinous affection. Corrupting goodwill into a weapon, corrupting intimacy into a self-spreading curse: it was a masterstroke of depravity. And Serana, despite temptations, wanted no part of it.

At least, she hadn’t, until Alexien willingly volunteered himself. It wasn’t uncommon for some mortals to try to prove themselves worthy of being turned, in their own selfish quests for power and immortality. But that hadn’t been Alexien’s motive. He did it from love. Somehow that made it both better and worse. Serana felt that the Lord of Corruption had to be watching, and laughing.

Because when he stepped forward, freely, and of his own will asked her to turn him – then that part of her that she had kept under lock and key broke loose, and all that mattered was that he wanted it just as much as she did; and she rejoiced with joy deeper than the sea that that deepest of her secret wishes could be fulfilled. To be so joined with him, so united to him – it was bliss enough to make her forget for a moment all else in the world, all that they had suffered, all that they still had to do, everything – except the two of them together.

Then came guilt, and fear. Guilt, because she could not acquit herself of the feeling that, even though he had been willing, she had somehow manipulated him into it. Had she perhaps unconsciously, or semi-consciously, long been preparing him for such a step? True, she had always insisted the opposite, if anything: that he should not trust her, that she was a monster who had done horrible things, that he should not for any reason wish to be like her. But perhaps she had artfully put it so strongly in order to provoke him into disagreement: that he _did_ trust her; that she was _not_ a monster, but rather kind and gentle; and that, perhaps, it _wouldn’t_ be so bad to be what she was. Then he, and she, could believe the illusion that it had been his own idea.

Then, the fear. Alexien had asked her whether being turned would change anything between them. She had answered – honestly, she hoped – that it would not. But perhaps _he_ would be changed, wouldn’t be her Alexien anymore. Perhaps he might regret it, and might resent her – might come to believe, in fact, that she _had_ manipulated him into it, and hate her for it.

Logically, she knew that was all unlikely. She had always consciously planned for and expected Alexien to remain human. Nor was he a fool or a dupe, or that petty sort of person who blamed others for their own decisions. He knew his own mind. And vampires remained fundamentally who they had been before being turned, just… with the addition of a few desires, and the power to act on them. He would still be the same Alexien as before. Mostly.

Around that, in fact, she still cherished fond hopes.

She liked him as a mortal human, certainly. But as long as he was human there was a lot about her that he might understand and accept, but never share. Now there was no side of herself that she had to hide or suppress around him; now they could be completely open together, share everything together.

What would he be like, as a vampire? Certainly not like the rest of the sycophants of the court; certainly not one of the monsters who gave themselves over to the bloodlust. That much she knew about him. There was no point in pretending that his unlife wouldn’t occasionally be dark, hard, horrific; but he would be far from the worst of their kind. He might even be the best of them. That, too, was hopeful, that too was perhaps something they could share: the struggle against the wicked side of their nature, the careful balancing act between not being ashamed of what they were and not letting themselves become what they shouldn’t. They could help one another, could be a good influence on one another.

And he was immortal now, like her. If he wanted to, they could live like that, be happy together like that, perhaps for…

Serana dared not think the word she hoped.

She glanced over again to check on him. It wouldn’t be long now.

There was, she had to admit, one thing that she regretted. It had always been especially touching that Alexien trusted her, even accepted her, despite his being human. It was all the more meaningful that he accepted what she was, because he _wasn’t_ what she was. That, at least, she had lost.

But that would be more than made up for by what they could gain together.

She hoped.

Suddenly Alexien started to stir. She rushed to his side in relief, and knelt down beside him. He wasn’t awake yet – he was dreaming – but it would be soon.

His eyes opened.

They were no longer the warm brown Serana remembered, but burning amber, like her own.

“Hey,” she said, with a pang. She put a hand to his head and stroked his hair. “How are you feeling?”

He seemed to have to think about it. “I… don't know,” he said. His eyes were darting around the room in evident confusion, perhaps alarm.

“Easy,” she said gently. “Don’t strain yourself. Your body and mind are still getting used to the changes.”

“Is it – is it done, then?” he asked. “Am I…?”

“Why don’t you sit up – carefully – and tell me yourself?”

Alexien raised himself up to a sitting position, neither as shakily nor as slowly as Serana had expected. He surveyed the room, turning his head this way and that, and inhaled the air several times.

“By the Eight,” he breathed. “I can’t believe I thought we could have hidden from something with senses like this.”

“It’s… kind of beautiful, isn’t it?” Serana asked hesitantly.

He blinked, considering that. “Yes,” he said finally. “Yes, it is. Is it – is your vision like this all the time? This precise, this…” Words failed him, and he just waved an arm.

“Not in direct sunlight. Otherwise, yes.”

“I don’t know why vampires aren’t all painters,” he said. He frowned. “I need to learn to paint. You’re right, it’s… beautiful.”

She smiled. “So, I’ll ask you again. How are you feeling?”

“…Thirsty?”

“That’s normal.” Serana opened her pack and rummaged around for something. “Traditionally there would be a big pompous ritual around your first feeding, but I didn’t want to nip down to the kitchens for a thrall. It’s just as well: the first time is… usually fatal. So for now you have to make do with this instead.” She handed him a red potion in a glass bottle.

He snatched the bottle from her hands with unseemly haste, threw his head back, and greedily drank down the potion, tapping on the glass to get every drop. “Gods above, Serana, this is the most wonderful thing I’ve ever tasted.”

She grimaced. “They’re usually considered quite bland. Wait until you have the real thing.”

“Ah,” he said awkwardly. He stared at the empty bottle. “Right.”

Serana looked for something to say, but he forestalled her: “How long have I been out?” he asked.

“About twelve hours. It’s hard to say exactly.”

“Have you… been watching this whole time?”

“Of course. I left for a minute to check on the passageway, but otherwise, I’ve been right here.”

“…Thank you, Serana.”

The expression on his face was unreadable.

Suddenly he stood up. “The portal…?”

“It’s all right,” Serana assured him. “I’ve been monitoring it. Take it easy. We have time.”

He said nothing, but walked to the edge of the platform and examined the portal himself. Serana stood and joined him.

“Alexien,” she started, “are you… all right?”

A look of confusion passed over his face. “Of course. I –” He stopped and turned to look at her. “Oh,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Serana; I’ve been inconsiderate. What you must think I’m thinking, I have no idea. I’m just… not myself right now.” He saw the look on her face, and added quickly: “Not like that! I just mean… it just feels strange. I’m still getting used to it.”

“Do you… do you regret it?”

“No.” He paused. “Do you?”

“I’ve never regretted anything less.”

Alexien gave a weak smile, and took her hand. “Just… give me a little while to pull myself together,” he said. “Then we can go on our stroll to necromancer-hell.”

“You _did_ promise to take me somewhere nice.”

“I did. But I was thinking something like Falkreath in the springtime, or maybe Markarth or even High Rock.” He gestured at the portal. “Somehow I don’t think that even as a vampire I’m going to enjoy what we find there.”

“Definitely not,” said Serana. “But take as much time as you need. I insist. You… might also want to do some spell practice in a bit, actually. I’ve heard that casting can feel different, after you’re turned.”

“Ah. Yes, that makes sense. Magicka reacts to a person’s life-energy, and I’m… not alive anymore.” He shook his head. “That still sounds bizarre.”

“You get used to it.”

Alexien, still shaking his head, shuffled to one of Valerica’s desks and sat himself down, rather gingerly, in a chair. Unconsciously he rubbed his neck.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Serana asked before she could stop herself.

“Of course not,” he said, surprised again. He realized where his hand was, and moved it to his lap. “That is… a bit. But I promise, I didn’t mind.” He gave her a smile, and motioned for her to come sit with him. “To tell the truth, I would _very_ much like to do all of that again sometime.”

Serana grinned. “Would you, now? Well maybe if you’re _very_ good to me, we can arrange something. All except the part where you die, anyway; I’m afraid that’s one time only.”

“I’m not saying that having you kill me to death wasn’t fun, but it was certainly the least fun part, in my opinion.”

“Oh? That’s a shame. It was _all_ fun for me.”

“It’s good to know that even though I’m a vampire now, there will still be jokes about killing and eating me.”

“Jokes?”

Alexien snorted. After some time he stood up. “Anyway. Spell practice. I need to quit moping, so we can finally get around to introducing me to this mother of yours.”

“When you’re ready,” Serana insisted. “It won’t do her any good if we get ourselves killed in the Soul Cairn because we went in before we were both at our best. Speaking of which – I found a staff in that cupboard over there. You might be able to make use of it.”

“Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly love you any more.”

That… distracted Serana for a moment. When she could pay attention again, Alexien was holding in his left hand a staff carved of some midnight-black wood, and frowning at it.

“This staff doesn’t like me,” he said.

“It was presumably my mother’s. Can you use it?”

“Oh, yes, certainly. It just… wasn’t made for me; it feels like wearing someone else’s glove. If that glove had been used in some pretty dark applications of magic. But I’d rather have it than not, in there.” 

Serana said nothing. Alexien looked at her more carefully, and seemed to notice something in her face. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m fine.” When he didn’t answer or look away, she added: “All this – turning you– has put me in an introspective mood. But I’m fine, really.”

“All right,” he said dubiously. “You know I chose this, right? You didn’t –”

“I know.”

He nodded, hesitated a moment. “And… I do hope you know, by the way, that I meant what I said. I want… you know. With you. If you do. And I’d like for us to talk about it, after we’re done with…” He waved an arm vaguely at the portal.

Serana’s throat felt tight. “I know. I do. And we will.” She swallowed, and spoke again in a more normal voice: “There are things we’ll need to go over anyway. Things you need to know about being like me. But it can wait.”

“Excellent, a lesson. I’ll take notes. Will there be an exam afterwards?”

“More of a practical. It’s called ‘not getting yourself re-dead.’”

“Sounds delightful.” He smiled. “Okay, let me cast a few spells and get used to what it feels like now, and we can go.”

* * *

Alexien spent a little while testing his magic, starting with a couple of wards before moving on to frost. Serana was right: the flow of energy felt strange now, as if someone else’s hands had been stitched to his arms. But he found that he was able easily and almost unconsciously to make the necessary mental adjustments; and to Serana, who was watching, it appeared as if he was altogether unaffected and could cast normally. He suspected – but said nothing of it – that his intuitive grasp of the differences and innate ability to compensate for them came from the Oghma Infinium.

One thing, however, he did find was truly different. After frost, he tried to conjure fire – but sudden alarm blared, and his thoughts lost their grip on the spell. It was like reaching out a hand for a red-hot piece of iron, and then reflexively drawing back as soon as he felt its heat: no sooner had his mind touched the concept of fire than it shrank away, and would go no nearer. Sunfire he dared not even attempt.

That was disconcerting, and something he would have to work on. For now, he hoped that the denizens of the Soul Cairn – if there were any – could be damaged by lightning and kinetic force. Fire he was confident would have worked. Maybe with more practice. He was sure he had seen a book somewhere that talked about…

He was stalling. They were as ready as they were going to be. He nodded to Serana, and together they moved towards the portal. They said not a word, but reached for each other’s hands, and together they stepped through.

At once Alexien felt a Presence all around him, watching him, grasping him, tasting him. It was like wrapping himself tightly in a cloak made of human skin – if that human was still alive and conscious, watchful with greedy malice. That sensation pressed against his mind, and he raised his psychic defenses against it; but it did not abate.

His feet touched the ground, and he bent over and grasped his knees. “Oh fuck.”

“I do _not_ like it here,” he heard Serana say beside him.

He forced himself to stand upright. “You feel that too?”

“Like… no, don’t want to think about it.” She took a moment to gather herself. “I think we’ve learned why no one traveling to the Soul Cairn has ever _seen_ the Ideal Masters. They _are_ the Soul Cairn. We’re _inside_ their… their mental landscape, I guess.”

“Sometimes I hate it when you’re right. Ugh – talking is bad; I can _feel_ it in my mouth.”

“Why anyone would come here voluntarily…”

“I think once they knew, it was too late.” He shook his head, and started to look around. “Right. Let’s get our bearings, figure out where your mother is, and…”

His voice trailed off, as he took in the landscape.

It was a mockery of reality, as if a deranged painter born blind had been given one brief glimpse of the physical world, had by it been driven deeper into realms of madness, and tried to portray his shattered mind’s fragmentary impressions through a chaos of color and texture. The dominant color had to be called violet, an unholy shade whose very being breathed blasphemy; other colors had no names, could not exist, were altogether impossible, but somehow expressed visibly the sensation of nausea, the smell of decay, the sound and taste of mourning.

Here and there towers and temples, their proportions simply _wrong,_ stabbed the sky; above them swirled clouds the color of despair. There were what could only be roads criss-crossing the landscape, but they had no organization, no intelligible purpose; they started nowhere and ended nowhere, crossed and avoided one another at random, looped around or suddenly shot off at hideous angles, with joy perverse in its meaninglessness.

Worst of all, he could see scattered pinpricks of brightness, and knew they were souls. Some stood transfixed in one spot; some floated without aim, on or off the roads; many clustered beneath those swirling clouds and flickered in and out of existence, as if they sometimes forgot their half-reality. They bled color into the air around them, or the imaginary colors of the Soul Cairn bled into them; but wherever they were, around them the unreal fabric of the Soul Cairn seemed more solid, and more horrible.

“I _definitely_ do not like it here,” Serana said again.

Alexien shivered. “Okay. This looks bad. But I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks.”

“It couldn’t possibly be.”

“Don’t get me wrong, this is probably the worst place in the entire universe. It’s just that ‘place’ doesn’t really apply to it.”

Serana scanned the horizon. “How do you figure that?”

“None of this is real,” said Alexien. “That is, it’s real, but what we see isn’t. Sort of.”

“You’re going to have to explain that one. And remember that I’m a mage too, please.”

“It’s a psychomorphic projection, or something like it. What we’re seeing, what we can touch and feel” – he kicked at the purple-black dust with his boot – “isn’t really here. It’s how our brains process the non-corporeal reality of this place, because we still have physical bodies and were stupid enough to bring our physical bodies and physical brains here. Except ‘place’ and ‘here’ are highly inaccurate terms, in this context. I’m not entirely sure whether time isn’t an illusion too.”

“I follow,” said Serana. “The true reality of this place really _is_ just as horrible as it looks, only we can’t perceive it directly while we have bodies. So this is our minds trying to make sense of it in a way we can understand.”

“Exactly. It’s fascinating. According to Master Zenas, most of the realms of Oblivion are supposed to have a nature more or less analogous to physical reality; but the Soul Cairn clearly doesn’t. Its whole being is flux. If we could transcend our limited modes of cognition we could probably transform the whole landscape with a thought, or let an errant emotion carry us wherever we wanted to go. Everything is near or far here only in terms of conceptual and spiritual likeness or unlikeness.” He thought for a moment. “Actually, I suspect _all_ the realms of Oblivion _would_ be like this, except they’re all the demesne of one of the Princes, who each impose on their planes a static ontological paradigm that has nearly the same degree of self-permanence as Mundus.”

“That’s fascinating and something we should definitely talk about at a much later point in time.”

“Point taken. In that case…” Alexien looked around the landscape again. “Well, there’s not really any such thing as ‘direction’ here, so this is a stupid question to begin with, but do you have any idea which ‘way’ your mother might have gone?”

Serana pointed straight ahead. “She probably continued in a straight line along the same path as she entered. That’s simplest. Besides, if space and direction are illusions here, but our minds are set on finding her, won’t we run into her eventually no matter which way we start walking?”

“That… has a strange and nonsensical logic to it. Straight ahead it is.”

They set off. As long as they watched their feet, the world appeared to be genuinely real: the road they trod was stable, and one foot in front of the other kicked up solid-looking dust. The closest landmarks along road they drew near, passed, and left behind, as they would approach and pass any normal surroundings on Nirn. But what they could see in the distance always wavered and shifted inconsistently: what was straight ahead of them seemed to grow still further off, while what was behind them drew nearer; a tall spire off to their left rose higher no matter what direction they traveled; whenever they looked to their right, it sometimes mirrored what they saw ahead of them, or behind them, or in the sky above them, and sometimes it gave some other vista entirely.

Suddenly they met a soul standing idle beside the road, although it had certainly not been there when they looked ahead. Without moving its lips, it greeted them in a strange voice, a chant that echoed as if from a great distance:

_“Welcome, wanderers, woe-condemned. What sorry sentence sent you hither?”_

“Nord,” muttered Alexien.

“Should we try asking for information?”

“Why not, that makes as much sense as anything here.” Alexien turned to the soul. It flickered in the half-light, hazy and indistinct, but somehow more solid than the fabric of the Soul Cairn around it. “We’re here searching for someone: Valerica, a vampire. Do you know where she is?”

_“Doomed watches doomed; the dread one guards her, Auriel’s offspring, of old who was cursed.”_

“The dread one?”

_“The flame that flies, fearful speaker; bound he was to baleful task.”_

“Right,” said Alexien. And because he could not help himself: “Who are you? Why are you here?” Serana jabbed him with an elbow.

_“My name no longer know I right. Battle we did, with bane of Kvatch; there I fell, foe-man slaying, slain myself in sleepless night.”_

“Oblivion Crisis,” muttered Alexien. “Always the fucking Daedra.”

“We should keep going,” said Serana, almost desperately.

“One more question.” He turned again to the soul. “Is there anything we can do to help you?”

_“Beyond help, beyond hope, yearn I for naught; your kindness may gods with kindness answer.”_

“Right,” said Alexien again. “In that case, farewell.” The soul did not answer, and turning away he continued on.

“So,” said Serana, “did we learn anything useful from that?”

“Useful to our immediate purpose? No, except that your mother is guarded by something unpleasant. But scholars at the College could write books about that short conversation. And will, I’m sure, provided we get back to tell them about it.”

“Let’s focus on that, then.”

“What do you have against talking to that poor man?”

Serana was quiet a while, before finally answering, in a small voice: “I’ve used black soul gems.”

“Oh.” Horrible comprehension dawned. “I – I’m sorry, Serana. You didn’t know, at the time.”

“I didn’t _care,_ at the time. There’s a difference.”

“I suppose there is.”

They walked on in silence.

A strange building, almost like a temple, rose up before them as if emerging from a mist. In the middle of it stood a crowd of shades, less solid, less whole, than the soul they had spoken with. Serana resolutely kept her eyes on the road ahead of them. But even as Alexien went to follow her, there was a gnashing sound; he spun around and saw a host of shadowy figures emerging from the temple.

They were like darkness made solid, absolute black without color or contour, but sharp rather than hazy, dense rather than indistinct. It took Alexien a moment to understand what he found so unsettling about them, before he realized that they had no aura.

All living beings had an aura, a signature of energy and vitality unique to them and them alone. Even the inanimate stuff of Mundus had a faint aura, a leftover perhaps of the divine power of the Aedra that gave it reality. But these creatures did not. They simply weren’t.

“Serana!” Alexien cried. He unconsciously reached out for fire, but shrank back from the spell in alarm; and then the things charged.

Serana took two with lightning: one moment they were reaching for Alexien, hands extending into something halfway between tentacles and talons; then a flash of thunder, and they were gone.

 _Lightning: highly effective,_ thought Alexien. He channeled power through his new staff and raised it high, then swung it in a great half-circle; the air crackled with electricity, lightning arced between several of the creatures, and they dissolved into nothing.

One was left near him, lunging for him; he started to raise a shield to deflect it – but then noticed that its movements seemed strangely slow. He stepped aside from its attack. It swung at him again, and he parried lightly with his staff; attacked again, and without effort he stepped back just out of its reach.

Then Alexien realized what was happening: he was just that much faster as a vampire. He had seen how swiftly Serana could move in combat, had seen her inhuman reflexes at work; but he’d never imagined what it was like to be that fast, to dance around an enemy too slow and clumsy to touch him, to exult in his own body’s speed and dexterity.

He dodged another attack, and laughed aloud in simple joy; he didn’t even need magic against these things. His sword was in his hand; he parried effortlessly, and with one simple movement, almost a flick of his wrist, stuck the blade through the thing’s throat. It dissolved in mist. Behind it was another, lunging for him; he didn’t bother to dodge or block, but before it could complete its attack he had already cut and cut again, and it faded away. He laughed again.

“Yes, you’re very fast; now quit playing!” Serana shouted.

“You never let me have any fun!” One more he struck down with his sword, then hurled lightning at several more.

The shades were simply no match for them, whether because they were vampires, or mages, or for some other reason. There were many of them, and more kept emerging from the temple; but it didn’t matter. It was, Alexien thought, a refreshing change of pace.

No sooner had he thought that, than he saw a shade at least twice the size of the others striding towards them. It wore armor of bone, and the skull of some extinct monstrosity was its helmet; in its hands it wielded a great axe that Alexien somehow knew, without having to think about it, was made from the bones of a dragon.

Serana struck it with lightning, but it ignored her attack completely, and swung the axe at her. She dodged – barely – and Alexien threw a spear of ice at it before it could attack again; but this, too, it shrugged off.

In desperation he reached for sunfire, but it burned his mind and the threads of the spell slipped away from him. He would have to work on that. For now he cried aloud and leapt, sword flashing.

Just at that moment it swung again at Serana; she caught the axe blade in her bare hands, but couldn’t hold it and was knocked aside. Alexien’s blade pierced its thigh from behind, and it screamed and struck at him with an armored first; he let go his sword and jumped back, but with a sharp _crack_ brought his staff down on its hand. He felt bone shatter, and it screamed again.

Serana had drawn her ebony dagger and leapt up onto its back, one arm around its neck, and she stabbed the blade up under its chin.

It did not scream; it simply vanished, and then Serana was standing on the ground amid a pile of bones.

“So that was fun,” said Alexien.

Serana grinned. “See? Being like me is _great_.”

“I should have let you turn me ages ago.”

“You had to earn it first.” She looked down at the bone remnants. “ _The dread one,_ do you think?”

“ _The flame that flies?_ I doubt it. With our luck…” his voice trailed off, and he looked again at the broken great axe, made from the bones of… “Fuck. It’s a dragon. There’s a dragon guarding your mother.”

Serana stared. “I told you once, if there’s a dragon, you’re on your own.”

“That was when you were more flammable than me. Now we’re equally flammable.” He looked at her. “I… have no idea how to fight a dragon.”

“I don’t either,” Serana admitted. “They were already extinct long before I was born.”

“So this will be new for both of us. Wonderful.”

“If it were easy, the gods wouldn’t have had to send _me_ to help you,” said Serana, smiling.

Alexien snorted. “Right. In that case, onwards we go.”

They started walking again, in what they thought was a more or less straight direction. It was still hard to tell. Alexien tried to ignore the disorienting effects of travel in the Soul Cairn, and reminded himself that Serana had to be correct: whatever were the absurdities of physical movement here, if they focused their minds on finding Valerica, eventually they would arrive where she was.

Suddenly there loomed up in front of them another temple-like structure, as if a veil had been pulled back to reveal it. It was massive, more comparable in size to a castle or a small walled town. Across the front entrance was a barrier of some kind.

“We’re here,” Serana said excitedly. “That’s one of my mother’s spells; I can sense her.”

Alexien cast one glance at the skies, saw nowhere the rush of black wings he feared, and nodded. They approached the barrier.

“Mother?” Serana called. “Mother, are you here?”

_“Serana – no, no it can’t be – no!”_

Alexien heard her, before he saw her. There was much of Serana in her mother’s voice, but it had a coldness and cruelty that were all its own. In those words, however, had been only blackest despair and misery; it was the heart-cry of a broken woman.

Then he saw her. She was shorter than Serana – shorter even than him – but otherwise could have been her elder sister. They had the same facial structure, the same chin, the same eyes; the only major difference was Valerica’s darker hair, which she wore pulled back and tied up in a practical knot. Doubtless centuries in the Soul Cairn had not been kind to her routines.

She stepped slowly up to the barrier from inside, utter dismay on her face. But when she drew close her expression changed, so quickly that Alexien wondered if he hadn’t imagined it.

“So,” said Valerica, voice icy, “he’s turned you against me at last.”

“What?” said Serana, confused. “No – that’s not why we’re here.”

“No? I can’t imagine why else you would be free, why else you would still have the Elder Scroll, why else you would be allowed to come here. Tell me, dearest daughter – what did your loving father have to promise you, to convince you to help him? Or what honeyed lies did he pour into your ears to persuade you to go along with his madness?”

“No, that’s not – we’re here to stop him, mother!”

“Stop him? The best way to stop him, daughter mine, was for you to stay asleep. By coming back to the Castle – by coming here, of all places! – all that you’ve done is play into his hand.” Suddenly Valerica narrowed her eyes. “No – you don’t know, do you? Even after all this time, you haven’t figured it out?”

Alexien could hold his tongue no longer. “If there’s something we haven’t figured out, we have you to thank for it.”

Valerica turned. Her eyes flicked down over him and back up. For the first time he looked doubtful. “I took you for one of Harkon’s lackeys,” she said; then her voice hardened again. “But you’re not. No, you smell of my daughter instead. Who are you? How, and why, have you manipulated my Serana into this?”

“I’m not _your Serana_ , mother,” Serana interrupted angrily. “You made sure of that. And this is Alexien. My savior, and my friend.”

“Friend,” Valerica spat, still glaring at Alexien. “Yes, I can sense what kind of _friend_ you’ve been to her, mortal. I know your type. Mage, ambitious, unscrupulous. Somehow you convinced my daughter to turn you – but in your heart you’re not one of us. You valued her only for what she could give you.” Her voice turned even colder. “However you’ve done it – however you played on her emotions and her innocence, and made her _think_ you care for her so that she would make you immortal – I assure you, I will see you _suffer_ for it.”

Alexien swept his eyes over the barrier between them. “You may have to wait a long time to do it.”

“Then I shall wait,” she hissed. “This long I have waited already, to stop Harkon’s insanity. Do not tempt me. To punish you for what you’ve done to my Serana, I may yet accept the consequences.”

“Mother,” Serana pleaded. “Please, listen to me. We’re here to _stop_ him. _To stop him_ , mother. And Alexien has helped me this whole time. I trust him with my life. We’ve already got another Elder Scroll –”

“ _What?_ ” Valerica demanded sharply. She examined Alexien again, and her eyes widened. “You – madness! Serana, it is evil enough that he has you – _but he must not have all three Scrolls_ as well! _”_

“He doesn’t have me! Haven’t you been listening? We’re not on his side, we’re not helping him, we’re trying to stop him!”

“You still understand nothing,” said Valerica; and even in her horror she could not keep the scorn from her voice.

“Then explain it,” said Alexien.

Valerica’s eyes burned into him. To his surprise, however, she nodded: “If you do truly care anything for my daughter – which I do not yet grant – it does not surprise me that your complete failure to grasp the central point of my plan should lead you to blame me for her part in it.”

“Her part in your plan? You buried her alive for a thousand years, just so she could keep the Elder Scroll from Harkon!”

“Fool!” she hissed. “Do you think I would entomb my own daughter, just to keep a piece of paper from her father’s hands?”

“Then… then why?” asked Serana.

Valerica glared once more at Alexien, then turned to face her daughter. “Serana,” she said – it was almost softly – “I was sure you would have guessed the truth. Do you really think so ill of me?”

“I don’t know what to think. You never told me enough to let me think for myself.”

What emotion there was drained out of Valerica’s face. “I see. If that is what you think…”

“What else _should_ I think, mother?”

“You should have _thought_ , and you would have seen that all along it was _you_ I have been protecting! Not the world, not the Scrolls – to Oblivion with both! _You!_ ”

Confusion showed in Serana’s features. “I don’t understand.”

“ _You_ are what Harkon needs to fulfill the Prophecy,” said Valerica. “The Scrolls – he needs them only conditionally. All they can do is tell him how he may fulfill it. But _you_ are the means by which he could actually do so.”

Alexien suddenly understood. “Julianos preserve,” he swore.

Valerica looked at him with cold approval. “Explain it to my daughter, then.”

“Your blood,” said Alexien. His hand shook on the staff. “He needs your blood. A Daughter of Coldharbour – Molag Bal’s curse and his power is in your blood. With it, Harkon can corrupt Auriel’s Bow and put out the sun.” He ran a shaking hand through his hair. “It’s… elegant. The Daedra can’t create, they can only corrupt. Molag Bal can’t drive out the power of the Aedra, but he can ruin it. And the Daughters of Coldharbour are his tool for doing so.”

“Exactly so,” said Valerica. “I doubt not that it was his plan even when we underwent the ritual to turn us. We thought it a fair trade – our service, for his power and protection – and we even thought it an honor. But the Schemer Prince never has only one reason for what he does. You see” – she said to Serana – “it was to protect _you_ , that you were sealed away. And I also am a Daughter of Coldharbour, and had to be kept from Harkon.”

Serana looked again at the barrier between them. “You’re not trapped here,” she said. “You’re in hiding here. This barrier is to protect you, not imprison you.”

Valerica laughed, a sound like breaking glass. “That was my original plan. But no, I am very much trapped here. Not, as you say, by this spell, which is indeed to protect me; but it makes no difference. I _cannot_ leave – but still I have the Scroll, which means that I have won, and Harkon has lost.”

“Is that… is that all that matters to you?”

“All that matters to me, is keeping you safe.”

“You have a strange way of showing it,” said Alexien.

“Do not dare –”

“Enough,” said Serana. Valerica and Alexien both fell silent, and waited for her to speak. “Enough of these games, mother. Enough of your schemes and plots. Ever since I was a child, I always trusted that you had a plan. Even when you arranged that ritual, I never lost faith that you somehow knew better than me, that it was all really necessary, or else you’d never have made me go through with it. But I’m done with that.” She glanced at Alexien, then back to Valerica. “I’m putting an end to all of this. Someone has to. You’re going to take down this barrier, and give us the Elder Scroll. Then Alexien and I are going to do what has to be done.”

Valerica looked taken aback. After a long time she spoke: “You’re right, Serana. I never… I hope that one day you can forgive me, for not being half as brave or half as wise as you have become.” She shook her head. “But I cannot simply lower the barrier.”

“Why not?”

“Because of Durnehviir,” said Valerica.

“The dragon?” Alexien asked.

“Even so. I… had planned to take refuge here. Many were the souls that I offered the Ideal Masters, to earn their favor and buy asylum. But in my arrogance I miscalculated. It was I that they wanted all along. No sooner had I arrived than they sent their servants against me, and I had to wall myself in here. Then they sent Durnehviir.” She laughed maliciously. “Him they tricked as well. They bound him by his agreement to watch me until my death. They did not tell him I am undying. So I cannot leave, or he will kill me; and he cannot leave, until I die. Such impasses drag on without end, when both parties are immortal and ageless.”

“He’s not here now,” said Serana, looking around.

“He is always near,” said Valerica. “Time and distance do not work as you expect, here in the Soul Cairn. Be assured, if I lower the barrier, he will arrive at once and will kill us. Even I cannot fight a dragon, daughter mine.”

“Then we will,” said Alexien.

Valerica sneered at him. “You are certainly bold, for one of your years. But foolish. If you fight Durnehviir, you will perish, and your houseless soul shall wander this place forever. I cannot believe that you would willingly take such a risk. No, I still do not trust you, nor your motives.”

“I trust him and his motives both,” said Serana.

“Since we have eternity to wait,” said Valerica to Alexien, without looking at her daughter, “I will humor you, and ask you a question, and pretend you might answer honestly. Why do you risk such a fate, to fight at my Serana’s side? Out of the goodness of your heart? To reunite a lonely daughter with her estranged mother? And by what means have you so bewitched her out of her senses as to trust _you_?”

“It’s the same answer, to all your questions,” said Alexien. “Because of, out of, for, and by means of, love. Because I love her.”

 _“Love,”_ Valerica sneered. “You are a liar, or else a greater fool even than I thought you. Do you expect me to believe that my daughter fell in _love_ with the likes of you, or that you dared even raise your eyes to her in hope that she might return your –”

“You should believe it,” Serana interrupted, “because it’s true. Except for the ‘daring to raise his eyes’ part. It’s not like that, between us.”

A flash of anger, and Valerica opened her mouth to speak; but Alexien cut her off: “Even with all eternity before me, I have no time to waste on this with you. Let down the barrier. We will kill this dragon, then leave you here alone to gloat in your superiority and your solitude, if that is your desire. Believe me as great a fool as you wish. Believe that I’ve bewitched Serana, or that she has bewitched me. I care not. She has decided that she will do this, and so I will help her, whatever it takes.”

The look on Valerica’s face was murderous. It was not the hot rage of momentary passion, but cold, calm, and terrifying malice. But at that moment Alexien was too angry to be frightened.

“Very well,” said Valerica, in a voice like a glacier. “I will help you, Serana. It may be that we will all perish together; and then at least I shall have the consolation of seeing _this one_ die before me, and confess with his last breath, as the beginning of his misery in the Soul Cairn, that I was right. But you may yet surprise me.” Somehow her voice turned still colder. “Now, give me a moment before we begin. I would speak with this… lover, of yours.”

Serana looked uncomfortable with that; but she saw Alexien’s expression, and backed away to leave them alone.

“Is this the part where you give me your blessing?” Alexien asked.

“This is the part, youngling, where I tell you that if you harm her or allow harm to befall her, I shall make you watch as I flay the skin from your bones. Of me as a mother, think what you will. But my daughter is all that has ever mattered to me. You, somehow, have misled her into trusting you, and by some perverse artfulness have led her to thinking that she cares for you. For _you_ , whom in the days of my power I should have rejected as unworthy for her even to feed upon. But, however undeserving and unsuitable her choice, she has evidently chosen you. _For now,_ at least. Accordingly, you will protect her and do all in your power to keep her safe and happy, until the blessed day comes when she tires of you and discards you. Do I make myself understood?”

“Vividly,” said Alexien; “but I elect to ignore everything you’ve said, and offer a better proposal. I’ll do whatever I want with Serana, and whatever she wants; and you can stay here in your own little corner of Oblivion and pretend you’re still someone who matters. You have no right and no standing to question my motives or dictate my actions, _especially_ where Serana is concerned. But one part of your diatribe I accept and agree to – not because you said it, but because I have already sworn it to myself and to her: to do all I can to keep her safe and happy, for as long as she’ll let me.”

Valerica’s eyes flashed, but she gave a faint smile. “You have _some_ backbone, at least. If I do not kill you within the next few hours, I may someday grow to like you.”

Alexien gave a courtly bow. “Allow me to assure you that the feeling is entirely, and vehemently, mutual.”

“Serana,” she called, eyes never leaving Alexien. “Come, and let us be done with this. I suppose, young fool, you have a plan for fighting a dragon?”

“‘Plan’ is a strong word,” said Alexien, as Serana strode up. “But I have thoughts, yes. Serana, stay with Valerica. The dragon will go for her first, if it’s bound to her. Do what you can to keep each other safe – the ward I showed you will stop fire, at least.”

“And what will you be doing?”

“Attacking it from the flank. While it’s distracted by you, and you’re focusing entirely on defense, I’ll put everything I have into attack. It’s not much to go on, tactically; but more than that, we’ll have to improvise when we see it.”

“Worse plans have succeeded,” said Valerica. “Albeit only by divine intervention. But I suppose we can do no better. I advise you to focus on its wings and try to bring it to ground.”

Serana moved to stand next to her mother, and Alexien drew off a few feet away. He gripped the staff more tightly and wondered what magic he had could possibly affect a dragon. If this Durnehviir was the size of the one whose skull adorned the palace at Whiterun…

“Be ready,” said Valerica. “When he senses that the barrier is down, he will come at once. His oath to the Ideal Masters compels him. They may send the rest of their hosts for me as well; and if that is so, I will not be able to help you against the dragon.”

“So be it,” said Alexien, with a glance at Serana.

“We’re ready,” said Serana. When Valerica’s back was turned, she reached for Alexien’s hand.

Valerica raised her arms, and the ground trembled with her power. Light and shadow bent around her. All at once she crossed her arms over her chest, and then thrust them out to either side. Alexien’s vision blurred, and the unreal fabric of the Soul Cairn shuddered. The barrier fell.

At the same moment there was a roar like nothing Alexien had ever heard before, loud and resonant as a thunderstorm. He spun and saw, in the air some distance away, but swiftly coming closer, the dragon.

It was _at least_ as large as the one whose skull he had seen. Its outstretched wings seemed to fill all the sky. Even from afar Alexien could make out a gleam of intelligence in its huge dark eyes, and remembered that in myth dragons were not beasts of the field but children of Akatosh, kin of Alduin the World-Eater, half-divine beings cunning and cruel, wise and wicked. He had never believed it, until now.

Alexien ran out into the courtyard, to put more distance between himself and Serana and Valerica, so that he would be flanking that terrible, monstrous, glorious creature.

But the plan went amiss. The dragon did not go for Valerica. It headed straight for Alexien. It came to him and circled above his head, twisting and rolling its powerful body in the air as if in play, beating its vast reptilian wings with awful majesty.

And then it turned its head to where Alexien stood, opened its mouth, and spoke:

**_"Ful nii los tiid, dovahkiin; zu’u lost saraan!”_ **

Alexien did not understand its words, did not even recognize the language. But hearing it speak, something inside him snapped. Some hidden part of him that he didn’t know about surged up; his heart boiled over with wrath, with defiant pride, with the sheer joy of challenge. Suddenly he was screaming back at the dragon – what, he didn’t know; he didn’t even know if there were words in his shout, or just an inarticulate cry of fury; but some mix of emotions, bizarre yet welling up from deep within himself, overflowed his chest, and burst out through his voice.

The dragon seemed to have been waiting for that. At once it stopped circling, turned, and dove for him.

He heard Serana give a shout, but it was far away, and did not matter. All that mattered was the dragon, and him. It dove, wings folded back, claws stretched out, sleek and swift as the lightning. To stay in its path was death; no power could match it head-on. Yet it wrenched at something in Alexien to leap aside, for some part of him wanted nothing more than to meet it head-on, to see which of them was truly the mightier.

At the last possible moment his brain screamed sense to him, and he leapt out of reach of those claws and those teeth. He charged a thunderbolt with all his strength and hurled it; the electricity shot through the dragon with a visible arc, and its whole body tensed; but it recovered, and without ever touching the ground took off again into the sky.

But it had been hurt by his attack. Alexien had seen it. The dragon was not invincible, not a god. It could be killed. And he would do it. One of the two of them would fall to the other, this day, and glorious would be the victory on whatever side.

Suddenly he was reminded that Serana and Valerica were still there: a barrage of ice spikes shot into the air, met the dragon in flight, and tore through its wings. It screamed, but kept to the air; turned to them, opened its mouth, and breathed fire.

Serana stood in front of her mother and cast a ward, then was engulfed in flame, and Alexien could see her no more.

He drew on his rage and his fear, and cast them at the dragon as lightning. He struck it on the neck, and its head shuddered; the fire ceased; and with another great beat of its wings it soared higher.

Alexien looked for Serana, found her; she was unharmed, still standing, but visibly shaky on her feet and leaning against a column for support. Blocking such an attack had drained almost all her power. Valerica was bracing her up. Alexien ran to them.

“We have more company,” said Valerica in greeting.

And indeed, coming up out of the darkness all around them, approaching the temple, were more of those same shades as before, the legions of the Ideal Masters.

“I won’t say I told you so,” she started.

“Handle these things and say whatever you want,” said Alexien. “How’s Serana?”

“I’m fine.” She finished drinking from a blue potion, and pushed Valerica off her. “So, you scared it away?”

“I’m a very scary person.”

“Idiots,” hissed Valerica. She turned to Alexien. “Keep my daughter safe. Or I shall make what the Ideal Masters do to you seem a holiday.”

“Mother, what are you –”

“The Scroll is over on that table. Take it and run.”

“Mother –”

“Go!” she screamed. Light bent around her again as she drew in power, then leapt forth at the shades.

Serana struggled to follow her, but Alexien held her back. “Get the Scroll. We’re leaving.”

“We can’t just –”

“We’re not, but we can’t stay here.” Serana looked at him in disbelief and desperation. They heard Durnehviir roar again, and the temple shook with the sound of it. “She can handle those things, but not the dragon. Get the Scroll, and come on!”

Without another word, without looking to see if Serana would follow, Alexien ran outside again.

Valerica’s power had not been exaggerated: she tore through the shades like fire through a dry field, and none stood against her. But when the dragon roared, she looked up and saw it diving for her, triumph in its eyes, as it opened its mouth and gathered flame. Valerica’s eyes widened.

Suddenly Alexien stood in front of her, and he raised his staff in both hands and cast a ward. The dragonfire poured against him, a neverending stream of burning pain, but he blocked it. Some of the heat still came through, and it seared his fingers and made the staff smoke; but he kept his concentration on the spell, until the flames abated.

Serana had emerged from the temple, with the Scroll strapped to her back, and she sent spear after spear of ice through the dragon’s wings. It turned towards her. Valerica stepped up beside Alexien, and even as he hurled thunder she conjured a whirlwind around Durnehviir, twisting and pulling at its wings, and it faltered in the air. Alexien hit it with still another bolt of lightning.

But the dragon spoke a word; Alexien could not hear it distinctly, but the very sky and earth vibrated with its power, and the whirlwind died at once. Those dark wings beat again, and off it took, rising higher and higher to come around again for another diving attack.

“All the gods damn you to the Void, stand and fight me!” Alexien shouted after it.

“Alexien!” Serana was shaking him.

“What are you two doing?” Valerica demanded. “Go! I shall stay!”

“Fuck that and fuck you,” Alexien spat. “We’re all heading for the portal. Serana, Valerica, run ahead and clear a path through these things. I’ll stay a little behind and fight off the dragon.”

Valerica’s eyes glittered. She started to say something, but Serana put a hand on her shoulder and forced her around. “Come on!” Serana yelled, and took off at a sprint. Valerica followed her. Alexien looked once more at the great wings of the dragon spread out against the sky, circling around, and then reluctantly ran after them.

Serana was the fastest, and was in the lead. Any enemies in her way fell before her, and she never slowed down. Valerica had little to do but follow, and occasionally cast lightning. Alexien went after them but stayed some distance behind, and often turned his head to watch the dragon.

It flew much faster than even three vampires could run, and soon it was nearly on them again. It came low to ground, and Alexien could all but read its mind: it had the three of them neatly lined up, and in a single pass it would burn them all to ash.

Exactly as he had planned.

He stopped, turned to face it, and planted his feet and his staff. He raised his right hand and pointed it at the onrushing dragon.

“Alexien!”

Serana’s voice. She would have stopped, and Valerica would be trying to pull her along. It didn’t matter, now.

The dragon came nearer. Its eyes shone with malice and victory. The air from its wings was a hurricane, and they beat up a duststorm beneath it. Its mouth opened, glowed with the heat of its inner fire.

Alexien reached out and channeled magicka through his hand. He did not aim at the dragon. He reached out and thought of Alteration, of the mathematical laws that bound ordinary reality, and how they could be bent. He reached out and touched the air around the dragon’s wings, and manipulated its pressure.

Suddenly those vast wings beat against nothing, against air that would no longer sustain Durnehviir’s weight. It stumbled, surprise clearly visible on its features, and crashed to the ground. Its momentum still carried it forwards, and it dug a long trench in the earth before slowing to a stop.

Alexien charged. The dragon struggled to put its legs beneath it, to rise to its feet; it saw him coming, and again Alexien could sense its surprise; its long neck curled back, teeth showing, tense like a coiled snake, ready to snap him up in invincible jaws. Just a few more steps, and –

It struck. Alexien came to a stop, and thrust his staff forwards and up. All the magicka he could gather he forced through it, raw power, no time to give it shape. The dragon’s great open jaws came down, and it realized what would happen just too late; the tip of the staff rammed into the roof of its mouth, and Alexien released all the energy he had gathered as pure kinetic force.

The skull shattered out, and the light in Durnehviir’s eyes died. Its body dissolved into mist and faded away, and no trace of it remained.

Alexien stood in shock; then he took a deep breath and screamed into the sky, a wordless cry of exultation and triumph.

“Alexien…”

He turned and saw Serana, watching him with wide eyes. “You…” Suddenly her face changed, and she rushed up to him and slapped him. “Don’t you ever dare do something like that again!”

“Fine,” he said, rubbing his cheek. “Next dragon we fight is all yours.”

“I admit, I expected to have the pleasure of seeing you devoured,” said Valerica, walking up to join them. “I am impressed and disappointed in equal measure.”

“Thank you,” said Alexien. “Can we leave this horrible place now?”

Valerica shook her head. “You can and should. I must stay. Now that Durnehviir is defeated, it will be safe for me here.”

“Mother…”

“One Daughter of Coldharbour in Tamriel is enough,” Valerica said coldly. “Two would double Harkon’s chances. I will not allow that. I will remain here until he has been dealt with.” Her mouth curled into a smile. “Besides, with Durnehviir dead, I am now the most powerful being resident on this plane. I think the Ideal Masters will be glad enough to leave me alone.”

Serana looked like she wanted to argue, but finally nodded. “All right. It won’t be long, I promise. Alexien and I will… will do what we have to do, and then we’ll be back for you.” She turned to Alexien. “Right?”

“Yes,” he conceded, after a moment’s hesitation. “Yes, of course. But we will have words to say to one another, before you return to Tamriel.”

Valerica smiled coldly. “I expected nothing less. I may still kill you, of course; but it will not be today.” Her eyes glanced to Serana, then back to Alexien. “Remember what we discussed.”

“I will – for the reasons we spoke of.”

“Good. Off with you, then.”

Serana started to say something, but Valerica interrupted her: “I know, Serana. Now go. We can talk next time.”

Without another word, Serana turned and walked away. She did not look back. Alexien hurried after her.

“I think your mother likes me,” he said.

She gave a stiff nod. “If she didn’t, you’d know.”

“Are you… are you all right?”

“Not right now, Alexien.”

They walked on in silence.

They came to the portal, with its eerie stairway of floating rock. And in front of it was Durnehviir. Like much else in the Soul Cairn, they did not see him until they were almost close enough to touch; then Serana cursed and dropped to a fighting stance and Alexien raised a shield.

 **“Stay your spells,”** the dragon said. Its voice was rolling and deep, slow, and strangely pleasant. **“I would speak with you.”**

 ****It looked straight at Alexien, and seemed to ignore Serana’s presence entirely. He let go of the magic and took a step forward, inclining his head. “Of what would you speak?”

**“Of our battle, and of honor. Will you hear me?”**

****“I will hear you.”

 **“Then these are my words: Many are the battles I have won in Tamriel, and many the foes I have conquered even in this wretched abyss. Never before have I been defeated, until now. To you I say therefore: Well fought!”** The dragon inclined its head – a bow. **“** **Glorious is your victory, and great my exultation to find at last an opponent worthy of speech.”**

Alexien returned the bow. “Your words do me honor, Great One, and I return them to you: Never before have I fought, nor heard of one who has fought, an adversary so mighty and so terrible as you.”

 **“Brighter than gold is praise from the praiseworthy,”** said the dragon. **“I would ask to hear your name.”**

“I am Alexien.”

 **“** ** _Defender_** **, in the old tongue of Cyrodiil. It is a good name. But I shall give you another:** **_Qahnaarin_ ** **I name you, which is** **_Vanquisher_ ** **in the language of the dovah. I am honored to be the first so to address you.”** The dragon inclined its head again. **“Truly I tell you, Qahnaarin, that I have long awaited the day of your coming. Yet I had not expected to find you among the night’s children.”**

At that, Serana gave a start. _Among the night’s children._

> _Among the night’s children,_
> 
> _a dread lord will rise._

She glanced at Alexien, but he had either not noticed the verbal echo, or chosen not to show it.

“I have only recently become a vampire,” Alexien was answering. “But how is it that you have been waiting for me?”

**“Time flows differently for the dovah, and mortal ways of discussing it are strange to us. I knew that you would come here, because you must come here. And I have awaited the day of your coming, because it is the day of my liberation – if you will it, Qahnaarin.”**

****“I am sorry, but I do not understand.”

 **“Some, then, I will explain,”** said the dragon. **“Do you not wonder how it is that we speak, when I fell by your hand?”**

 ****“I was… surprised to see you again, certainly.”

**“I am bound to this half-life, the curse of my own hasty bargain with the Ideal Masters. Of this you know. I cannot die, while the one who calls herself Valerica lives.”**

Serana stiffened. Alexien glanced back at her, and then at Durnehviir again. “Then we are at an impasse, Honored One; for we would seek to prevent the death of the one who calls herself Valerica.”

A deep, echoing rumble came from the dragon’s throat – a sound that Alexien realized was laughter. **“What I seek will prevent it. For I have another reason in wishing to speak to you. I would ask a boon of you, Qahnaarin. Will you honor me, and hear my request?”**

“I will hear it, and gladly.”

**“Open your true eyes, then, and look upon me. Do you see the curse that binds me?”**

****Alexien extended his magical senses, and at once felt the threads of the spell twining around the dragon’s soul. “I see it.”

**“And can you unmake it?”**

The answer sprang at once into Alexien’s mind, unbidden but infallible: “I can – but it would destroy you, forever. You would just… cease to be.”

**“That is what I seek, Qahnaarin. No greater boon can I ask of you.”**

****“You wish to die?”

**“Rather than live this mockery of life in the Soul Cairn – yes, I would die the true death. Break the curse that is upon me, and set me free of my unlife and of the Ideal Masters’ undeath. Else I am bound here forever.”**

****“Then of course I will free you,” said Alexien. “Are you ready? Is there anything else that you wish to do or say first?”

 **“One thing more I shall say, and then yes, I am ready. Listen well.”** The dragon moved its head closer, to within barely a foot of Alexien’s face. **“In return for this boon, I offer another. It is all I have left to give. I give you my name. Once, and once only, in the day of your direst need, speak my name; and what remains of me will come to your aid. Hear my words, therefore, and feel them in your soul: I am** **_DUR NEH VIIR_** **.”**

On those last words its voice changed, and again the air and the ground seemed to vibrate with the power of its speech, which echoed from everywhere and nowhere.

Alexien bowed low, in sincere respect. “I thank you, Great One, for your words and for your gift. I do not fully understand it; but most truly, I feel the worth of it, and I am humbled beneath the weight of this honor.”

**“You will understand when it is time. Remember me, Qahnaarin. I am ready.”**

****Alexien stretched out a hand, but hesitated. “I have to touch you, to do it.”

The dragon inclined its head one final time. Alexien laid his palm on the scales of its forehead, between its huge dark eyes. They were closed. He reached out for his power, and found again the threads of the curse. Somehow he knew exactly how to unbind them, exactly where to start pulling the magic apart. He worked quickly. The spell came loose and blew away as on a wind, and with it he felt Durnehviir’s life fading. When he was done, the great dragon’s head sank gently down to the ground.

Alexien said nothing. He felt a sadness he could not explain. Serana put a hand on his shoulder; he gave her a nod, and gestured for her to follow him out of the Soul Cairn.


	21. Nowhere to Lay His Head

_1 Rain’s Hand, 4E 201._

_Alexien de la Roche to Brelyna Maryon. Greetings._

_Even among bandits and vampires, Daedra and dragons (the story deserves to be told in person, and Serana can tell it better than I), I find that my greatest enemy this year is simply the calendar. How is it possible that Rain’s Hand is upon us, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen you at the College? I hardly dare imagine what mischief you’ve gotten yourself into._

_I don’t mean it, of course. I eagerly look forward to seeing what progress you’ve made, and doubt not that I shall be, if it is even possible, still more proud of you._

_With deep regret, however, I find that I must ask you for a favor. Serana and I are at long last returning to Winterhold. But I would very much like to meet you first, in the village, alone, for reasons that will become clear. I would prefer that you come by yourself; but I have no objection to your being accompanied by Tolfdir or Mirabelle, if you wish._

_I fully comprehend how odd and suspicious this sounds. I only ask that you trust me a little longer, until you understand my reasons and can judge the case for yourself._

_If you are willing to be so gracious as to grant me this favor that I do not deserve, please send your response to Dawnstar – I am currently writing from Solitude, but from there I will be better able to guess the exact day when we will arrive at Winterhold. Farewell._

* * *

_7 Rain’s Hand, 4E 201._

_Brelyna to Alexien. Greetings._

_I resent the implication that I would ever get into any kind of mischief whatsoever. Any previous evidence of mischief is purely circumstantial and cannot be used against me. In fact, I’m so offended that I might just consider refusing you your favor._

_Except you already knew when you asked that I wouldn’t do that. Of course I’ll meet you, and I’ll come alone. I am absolutely overcome with curiosity to see what all the cloak-and-dagger mystery can be about – Are there spies in the College (other than Ancano, I mean)? Are you recruiting me to be part of a coup against Savos? Are we staging a take-over of the village of Winterhold (definitely count me in, if we’re kicking out the jarl)? All of the above and more? I can’t wait to find out!_

_Also, dragons? Really? Even you can’t possibly believe that I’m that gullible. Again, any previous evidence of gullibility etc etc. Farewell._

* * *

_10 Rain’s Hand, 4E 201._

_Alexien to Brelyna. Greetings._

_I thank you, and Serana thanks you. You can’t know how much your trust (with whatever flippancy it was expressed) means to me._

_Please meet us on 14 Rain’s Hand, at noon, in the main square at Winterhold. Farewell._

_P.S. One dragon twice, technically._

* * *

With all three Elder Scrolls at last in their possession, their next goal had been clear: back to the College, where Dexion could read the Scrolls, reveal to them the location of Auriel’s bow, and explain (hopefully) anything else about the Prophecy that was still ambiguous. Thus after getting back to the mainland Alexien and Serana set out eastwards with all speed.

First, however, they needed to stop by Solitude.

Among other reasons, Alexien still had to feed.

As they approached the city by night – for of course they travelled now only by night – Serana explained all the technical minutiae that she thought Alexien needed to know about his new unlife. He was something called a halfblood, which, she said, was nearly as good as being like her: he had speed and strength greater than that of most vampires, and only little less than her own; like her, he could only transmit vampirism in certain limited and specific ways, which for now she refused to discuss; and like her, he would be especially gifted at Illusion magic, which he would need for – she emphasized – the critical task of concealing what he was.

“You probably won’t find it very difficult,” said Serana, as they neared Solitude. “You were already a skilled mage; this just enhances some of your abilities. To tell the truth, if you’re trying to influence someone you’ll probably have to be more careful about accidentally _overdoing_ it. Assuming you don’t intend to enthrall them, which I assume you don’t.”

“No, I’d rather avoid that, if possible,” Alexien answered, in a strained voice. “It _is_ possible, right?”

“Of course. I expected nothing else from you. Just like it’s possible never to kill – though you _will_ sometimes find that more difficult to resist. It’s… something you’ll have to make an effort for.”

“Is it an effort for you?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “It’s been a long time since I’ve hurt someone – other than you, I guess – but the temptation can still be there. I was… kind of hoping that we would be able to help each other with that, actually, if you…”

For answer he reached for her hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

They drew near the main gates of Solitude. They were closed for the night, and a handful of guards stood on duty outside.

"Consider this a training exercise," said Serana.

Alexien glanced at her. "Ah. Right."

“Again, this should be easy for you. Just remember that you won’t have to exert as much strength as you’re used to. It won’t take much to give them just a slight nudge in the appropriate direction.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got this.”

Serana shrugged, and followed him from a few feet behind as he strode up to the gates. They got quite close before the guards noticed them; then they gave a start and put hands to weapons. One of the guards took a step towards them.

“Halt,” he commanded. “It’s after dark. No entry to the city.”

Alexien frowned, the expression of a weary traveller being denied rest. “Is something wrong?”

“What’s it matter? It’s after dark, I said, so there’s no entry. Are you deaf?”

“No, just disappointed,” said Alexien. He made eye contact with the guard, just for a moment. “We had been hoping to stay at the inn – it’s been a long day, you know. We got here as quickly as we could.”

“Oh,” the guard said, flustered. “That’s…”

“Are you sure there’s nothing you could do? Just this once, for us?”

“Well… I mean… we certainly don’t want you sleeping outside the walls,” said the guard. “It’s dangerous. And they wouldn’t have given us the keys if we’re not supposed to use our discretion to… yes, yes of course you can enter, just this once.”

Alexien made eye contact again, and flashed him a smile. The guard nodded and barked an order to the others. They unlocked the great gates and opened them just a crack, then shut them again as soon as Alexien and Serana had passed through.

“Not bad,” said Serana. “Took a bit longer than was strictly necessary, but not bad for a first attempt.”

“That was… disturbingly easy,” Alexien muttered. “I didn’t have to consciously apply any Illusion at all. It just happened.”

“Again, that’s because you were already a mage of some talent. It’s a lot harder for most new vampires.”

Alexien glanced at her. “Serana, are you… are you sure you never did that to me? Even accidentally?”

“I’m… _pretty_ sure,” she said, taken aback.

“Sorry, that was…” He shook his head. “I didn’t really even mean to ask that. It just feels weird.”

“It’s okay,” said Serana. “Believe me, I know. You get used to it.”

They found an inn and rented a room for the night. The inn was busy, and Serana knew from how Alexien’s gaze lingered on some of the other guests that he was getting hungry. There was a woman sleeping in the room next to theirs – Serana explained how to tell by the heartbeat. They wrapped silence and shadow about them and snuck in. The woman was a bard, to judge from the lyre and flute near her bed. Serana showed Alexien exactly where to bite, and when to stop. Then she stepped back, and Alexien fell upon her. After a while he pulled himself away, slowly and reluctantly. His hand clenched and unclenched several times; finally he waved an arm and sent a small surge of healing magic into the woman. Serana rolled her eyes but smiled. She gestured to a small bag of gold that they could easily take; Alexien gave her an offended look, and she nodded in approval.

“Well?” she asked in a low voice, when they were back in their room.

Alexien considered. “I wish it didn’t taste as wonderful as it does,” he said.

“I know. You get used to that, too.”

“I mean… I still don’t regret anything,” he assured her. “I need you to know that.”

“Thank you for saying so,” said Serana. “But it’s okay. I expected it to take a while for you to adjust. You’re… not the kind of person to take to it easily. If you were, I wouldn’t have turned you.”

Alexien glanced at the bed. “I guess I don’t really need sleep anymore, do I?”

“You need rest, certainly – but nothing like as much sleep as before, no.” She smirked. “But I can think of other things for us to do in the bed.”

Suddenly her smirk faltered, and she added hastily, “That is – I know you’re still getting used to all this; if you’re not emotionally –”

Alexien touched a hand to her cheek. “Emotionally ready to show the most amazing woman in the world how much I love her?” He put on a thoughtful expression. “Yes, this one will take serious deliberation. The main question –”

Serana kissed him. “Gods, I hate you sometimes.”

“But not right now, I hope?”

“Not right now,” she said, and pulled him close.

* * *

“Alexien, are you… quite sure you want to do this?”

It was 14 Rain’s Hand, and they stood just outside the village of Winterhold. They both wore their hoods up, as protection against the sun directly overhead.

“This is my home,” he said. “I’m not hiding here.”

“But that doesn’t mean you have to advertise the fact that…”

“It’ll be noticed anyway. I want it to be clear from the first that I’m not even attempting to conceal anything. And… yes, I wanted Brelyna to be the first to see. I owe it to her.” He glanced at Serana. “You don’t have to come with me, though. If you’re worried they’ll blame you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Serana. “If this is important to you, I’m with you, and I’ll follow your lead.”

“I… thank you,” he said. He took a deep breath. “Let’s go meet my apprentice, then.”

They strode right up the main street of the town. Like the first time, about half of the townspeople smiled and waved at Alexien, and half crossed the road to avoid them. Perhaps Serana was imagining it, but she thought she saw on all faces an uncomfortable suspicion than hadn’t been there before. She hoped that Alexien wasn’t about to learn the lesson she feared he would. But if he did, she promised herself she wouldn’t say _I told you so_. It had been hard enough, when she learned it.

They stood in the main square, which was all but deserted, and waited.

Not for long: soon they saw Brelyna walking out of the archway that led to the College. She saw them from across the square and waved cheerfully. Alexien raised a hand in acknowledgement, and she started walking towards them.

But as she came closer her steps slowed, and a look of confusion passed over her face, and then horror.

“I know how this looks,” Alexien started.

Brelyna raised her hands and covered her mouth. She said nothing. After a moment she seemed to notice for the first time that Serana was there, and rounded on her in fury.

“ _HE TRUSTED YOU!_ ” she screamed.

“Brelyna –” Alexien started.

She didn’t hear him. For her everything except Serana had disappeared.

“ _HE THOUGHT YOU WERE HIS FRIEND!_ ” she screamed again. Suddenly she raised her arms, and they were wreathed with flame, white-hot in her rage.

Alexien started to step in front of Serana and raise a ward, but Serana shoved him back. She stood and faced Brelyna, still as a statue, and made neither move to defend herself, nor eye contact, nor any gesture of threat; but only stood, eyes downcast, and waited.

Brelyna did not attack. After a moment that felt like an hour, she lowered her arms; the flames died, but she did not release the power she had gathered.

“Will you hear me?” Serana asked, still not raising her eyes.

“What could you have to say?”

“Nothing in excuse. Only an explanation.”

Brelyna gave a stiff nod.

“Thank you,” said Serana. “Alexien – give us a minute alone, please.”

“Stay where I can see you,” Brelyna cautioned.

At that the color drained from Alexien’s face, but he agreed, and stood some distance behind Serana.

“So – what do you have to say?” demanded Brelyna.

“A lot. But let’s clear the air, first. I imagine there are some things you want to ask me? I swear by the blood of my ancestors, I'll answer honestly.”

Brelyna snorted in disbelief, but her expression softened all the same. After a moment she asked, “How long were you… how long were you planning to do this?”

“Never. I never did.” Serana held up a hand. “I swear it. Wanted to, yes. But I never planned to do it.”

“So what changed?”

“Alexien asked me to turn him.”

“You expect me to believe –”

“I tried to talk him out of it, Brelyna. But you know how stubborn he can be.”

Brelyna gave a weak smile. “Why would he do that?”

“I… had to go somewhere he couldn’t follow, as a mortal. But it was dangerous, and he refused to let me go alone. He had a set of terrible choices, and he chose the one he thought least terrible, for my sake.”

“That does sound like him,” Brelyna admitted uncertainly.

“And… look, I don’t want to mention this part – not like this – but I swore I’d answer honestly,” said Serana. “He and I kind of… became close.”

Brelyna’s eyes narrowed, then widened suddenly. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” she said again. “That… idiot.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said too.”

They were silent a minute, until Serana spoke up: “Look, the fire magic is making me kind of nervous, do you want to –”

Brelyna raised a hand again and pointed it at Serana. “No.”

“Right,” said Serana with a sigh.

“So, what did you have to say? Why are you here?”

“Why else? This is Alexien’s home. And the Moth Priest is here, and we need him to read the Elder Scrolls so we can prevent the end of the world. Remember the end of the world?”

“Oh, you… you haven’t heard,” Brelyna said in a small voice.

Serana ignored her. “And please consider the circumstances. If we wanted to be sneaky, we would have just draped ourselves in illusions and walked right on in to the College. He’s a member, he doesn’t need anyone to invite him in or anything. There was no need to ask you here alone and arouse your suspicions. Alexien, lovable idiot that he is, just wanted you to be the first to know, and to learn it from him. And he asked to meet you in a public area, at _noon_ – which is absolutely the worst possible time for us – as a sign of good faith, so you wouldn’t feel threatened. We could just as easily have insisted you meet us alone in some back alley at midnight.”

Brelyna bit her lip. “Unless you’re trying to put me off my guard, so you can enthrall me.”

“You notice I’ve been doing an awful lot of talking, instead of attacking as soon as you walked up. You may also have noticed that I am carefully avoiding eye contact, specifically to reassure you of my intentions. I’m – forgive me – I’m much stronger than you; you know perfectly well that I wouldn’t have to put you off your guard, if I wanted to hurt you. But I don’t, and Alexien certainly doesn’t either.”

She considered for a long while, then relaxed her stance. She lowered her hand and let the power disperse.

“Thank you,” said Serana.

“I want to talk to him.”

Serana made a gesture, and Alexien appeared a moment later.

“It’s... good to see you again,” he said uncertainly.

“It is,” Brelyna agreed. “It is, really. It’s just… she… _you trusted her_.”

“I did, and I do. Believe me, it wasn’t easy to argue her into this. She didn’t take advantage of me or pressure me into anything. And I’m still the same person I was, Brelyna.”

“Are you, actually?”

“As far as I can tell.”

Serena rolled her eyes. “We were hastening back here with the fate of the world literally resting on our shoulders, and he insisted we stop by the bookstalls at Solitude ‘ _while we’re here anyway,’_ if that tells you anything.”

Alexien wore a look of mixed annoyance and amusement, and Brelyna laughed. “All right,” she said. “I believe you. But… they might not like this, you know.”

“I know. But it means a lot that you at least are on my side.”

“Of course. I wrote you that I was down for a coup attempt, after all.”

“This is sweet and everything,” said Serana, “but now that we’ve established that none of us is murdering any of the others, can we get inside and out of the sun?”

They agreed, and set off for the College. As they passed under the archway Serana again felt the wards part like a veil to admit her, and reflected that at least Alexien’s invitation still held good.

The courtyard was the same as it ever was: lush and green and beautiful, regardless of the weather or the seasons outside. Even the light of the sun became less oppressive, though it was no less bright.

“I have to go to a class,” said Brelyna. “Do you… want me to get Mirabelle?”

“Please, and thank you,” said Alexien. He bowed, in the manner that Serana had learned was reserved for equals.

“That went… much better than I expected,” said Serana, as Brelyna hurried off.

Alexien glanced at her. “Fantastic.”

They waited a short while in the courtyard, pacing the paths and examining some of the flowers newly in bloom. Serana was just pointing out one that she had seen nowhere else besides her mother’s garden, when Mirabelle appeared, looking grim.

“Alexien,” she said, with a curt nod. “Serana.”

“It’s good to see you, Mirabelle,” said Alexien, with a formal bow.

She hesitated a moment; then said “None of that,” and kissed him on both cheeks Breton-style. She pursed her lips. “Brelyna explained the… situation.”

“You don’t seem too concerned,” Serana observed.

“This is far from the stupidest thing I’ve seen Alexien do,” she said. “And it says a lot in your favor that you came forward voluntarily.”

“I’m sensing a _but_ ,” said Alexien, frowning.

“ _But_ – you know you’ll have to talk to the Archmage about this.”

“Of course; I was already planning on it.”

“Having a vampire as a guest…” she glanced at Serana. “That’s one thing. But you have to admit that when that same vampire whom we welcomed ends up… it looks suspicious, Alexien.”

“I know. But I want to be forthright and above-board. I had my reasons, and I will be happy to explain them.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Mirabelle. “And I’ll speak for you, if it comes to it.” She touched the bridge of her nose. “You have some time – Savos is with Ancano right now. Feel free to go back to your rooms, if you want to rest a while out of the sun.”

“I do. And change into clean robes. Thanks, Mirabelle.”

She waved him off, and left them alone. Alexien turned on his heel and headed for his own chambers. Serana followed him into the tower, up the stairwell, and down a hallway, neither of them speaking, until they came to his door.

Alexien knelt down and picked up a small parcel of letters. “I have mail,” he said. “From the Dawnguard.”

“Fantastic,” said Serana.

He shrugged, opened the wards and the door, and walked in.

Everything was exactly the same as Serana remembered from last time. The same scattered papers and bottles of ink lay on a desk in the middle of the room, next to a precariously tall stack of books; the same miscellaneous assortment of magical and mundane literature overburdened the same bookshelves. No one had been here since they had last left. Serana noticed that there was no dust.

Alexien dropped his pack and laid aside his staff with a sigh of contentment, unstrapped the Elder Scroll he was carrying and propped it against a wall, and set the parcel of letters on the desk. He gestured to the bedroom.

“I need to change into something less… this,” he said. “There are spare robes, if you want something fresh.”

“I’ll pass,” said Serana. “We don’t really need clean clothes the same way, you know; our bodies have different alchemical metabolisms from living ones and don’t stink things up.”

“But I’ve been wearing this since Windhelm,” said Alexien, walking into the other room and unstrapping his belt. “And it still smells like the Soul Cairn.”

“No it doesn’t. The Soul Cairn didn’t have a smell. Your new senses are just confused by the lingering psychic horror.”

“Regardless, I’m changing. For some entertainment, do you mind reading the letters from the Dawnguard for me? I’m sure they will be filled with unintentional irony.”

Serana laughed and opened the parcel. It contained three letters. The first was from Sorine, and she read aloud:

  
  


_8 First Seed, 4E 201._

_Sorine Jurard to Alexien de la Roche. Greetings._

_One of the gods must love you, because you have Sheogorath’s own luck._

_First, you actually managed to find Blackreach, and then you somehow found your way back out again. You have my congratulations and my envy. Yes, by the way, I would like your notes, and I think I deserve them after all the work I’ve done on Isran for you._

_Second, we had just received but not yet been able to read your letters – in which you used a lot of unnecessary words to confirm that you were still working with a vampire, and then tried to wheedle information out of us – when we hit a coven near Markarth. They were Harkon’s, and we took one of his courtiers alive. He was a talkative one, and under interrogation told us that Harkon had agents combing all Skyrim for his renegade daughter and a College mage traveling with her, and the two of you had killed several of them some weeks previously, and that you in fact had survived an assassination attempt only a few days earlier._

_Well, after that Isran wouldn’t hear a word against you. Somehow you were vigilant enough to take down a vampire in your sleep, and you’d even convinced a vampire princess to turn on her own kind. Truly an example to all of us. He even had a good word – literally one, I think – to say about Serana._

_I’m not saying we trust her. But I will admit that maybe we’ve been a trifle ruder with her than she deserved, and haven’t had enough faith in you._

_That said, I subscribe the usual obligatory warnings: You_ _shouldn’t_ _let your guard down. Yes, I know, she’s helped you; she’s been a friend to you; she’s not like other vampires. And maybe that’s true. But you’d be a fool not to realize that maybe it’s not. Many people before now have been convinced that one particular vampire is ‘different’ – right up until the second it turns on them. Just be careful. Farewell._

  
  


“What do you think, Alexien – am I like other vampires, or am I different?”

“Hard to say,” came his voice from the other room. “You’re the only one I’ve ever slept with, so I don’t have much to compare against. I’m guessing solid black robes would be a bit on-the-nose, under the circumstances?”

“No, I think that’s subtle and perfect. Anything with blood-red accents?”

“Alas; and no skull-themed jewelry either, unless you have a spare. Who’s the next letter from?”

“Isran.” And Serana read aloud again:

  
  


_8 First Seed, 4E 201._

_Isran to Alexien._

_Excellent work. Somehow you’ve managed to keep a good head on your shoulders despite your idiotic choice of friends. But I guess a vampire that kills other vampires isn’t the worst thing in the world. If you need to return to Fort Dawnguard_ ~~ _with it_~~ _with her, I promise her safe passage._

_If you’re right about this bow, then acquire one more Elder Scroll, and we’ll finally have a weapon to even the odds against those fiends. Just be careful and make sure this ‘Serana’ doesn’t betray you at the end and take it for herself._

_As Sorine is telling you, we tracked down an outpost of Harkon’s court and burned them out. But we took casualties too. Vori and Agmaer died like heroes. The truth is, we’re fighting a losing battle. The vampires are expanding everywhere, infecting others and making an army of thralls. They’re preparing for something big. We gave them a black eye, but they’ll be back. And when they come we’ll need all the help we can get._

_That means you need to be careful. Even if ‘Serana’ isn’t a spy and – I can’t believe I’m writing this – genuinely thinks of you as a friend, she may still be planning to try to turn you. Vampires are possessive, and they keep their favorite pets jealously. Stay vigilant. Farewell._

  
  


“You’re right,” said Serana, “I’m enjoying the unintentional irony. He has a point, though: I can be possessive, so don’t get any ideas.”

Alexien walked back in. “To be fair to Isran, you _did_ turn me into a vampire.”

“Only because you asked nicely.” Serana handed him the third letter. “This one’s from Brynhild. You may want to read it yourself: I think she likes you, and you know how I’m always flying into a jealous rage.”

Alexien, choosing not to dignify that with a response, unfolded the sheet of paper and read aloud:

  
  


_8 First Seed, 4E 201._

_Brynhild of Whiterun to Alexien de la Roche. Greetings._

_I admit, reading your last letter, I couldn’t decide whether to believe that you really are what you seem to be, or if you’re just that good a liar. Or if indeed Serana had enthralled you and was dictating the whole thing. But at some point paranoia becomes a swamp where honest men lose their way. I choose to believe you._

_Please don’t make me regret it._

_Isran will be too proud to come out and say this in as many words, but we need you. The last fight was bad. One of the vampires was a spellcaster. Sorine was the first to break free of its psychic attack and put a bolt between its eyes; if not for her I don’t think any of us would have survived. And don’t believe his stony facade: Isran fought like a lion to save Agmaer, and he didn’t sleep for days afterwards._

_Take care of yourself, and come back to us soon. We’ll even be glad to see Serana, if it means we have your help again. Farewell._

  
  


Serana smirked and started to say something, when there was a knock at the door.

It was an Altmer woman Serana didn’t know. Alexien looked surprised, and gave her a quick bow. “Faralda, it’s a pleasure to see you. Come in?”

“No, thank you, Alexien,” said Faralda, in a neutral tone. Her eyes shot once to Serana and then back to Alexien. “I’ve just been sent to tell you the Archmage is free.”

“I appreciate it. We’ll be there shortly. Please, allow me to introduce you to Lady Serana of the Volkihar. Serana, this is Faralda, the Destruction Master.”

Serana inclined her head, thinking quickly. They had sent the Destruction Master to fetch Alexien. Not a good sign. She remembered where she had heard the name before: Savos had mentioned her in a way that implied she was some kind of security expert or enforcer. Also not a good sign.

Faralda nodded, without looking away from Alexien. “Shall I escort you?”

“I know the way.”

“I insist.”

“Thank you, then. Serana?”

“Just you,” Faralda interrupted.

Alexien stiffened imperceptibly. “ _I_ insist. She’s my guest. Under my protection.”

“Do you think she’s in danger?”

“You tell me, Faralda.”

Faralda stared, but avoided eye contact. “No, she’s not. But very well. This way, please.” She hesitated. “It’s nothing personal, Alexien.”

Alexien didn’t answer. He started to reach for his staff, but thought better and left it against the wall. Serana followed him out, with a quizzical expression; but he only shook his head, which she took to mean _Not right now._ Faralda showed some impatience as he very pointedly warded the door, and then they all set off for the Archmage’s study.

None of them spoke as they made their way down the corridors and up a long stairwell. They came to the same door that Serana remembered from last time; Faralda knocked once on it, and stepped back, motioning for Alexien to go through. He nodded as if in thanks, and opened the door.

The study, too, looked much as it had before: bookshelves lined the walls, and in the middle of the huge room were several large tables, so covered with scrolls and artefacts and alchemical apparatus that their surfaces could hardly be seen. The Archmage, Savos, sat behind one of the tables. He looked tired.

Mirabelle was also there, and had clearly just been talking with him. She bowed respectfully and walked away. Her face was a mask, but she gave Alexien a brief flicker of a smile as she passed.

“You wanted to see me, Archmage?” asked Alexien.

“For some time now.” If he looked tired, it was nothing to the weariness in his voice. “Lady Serana, it’s a pleasure to see you. I had hoped to speak to you as well, so you are welcome. Please have a seat, both of you.”

“Thank you, Archmage.”

“There’s no need for the formality. Ah – I suppose that Faralda was a bit… zealous?”

“She showed an understandable caution.”

“I’m glad you can see the situation from our point of view. But that’s why you’re here. We need to discuss… this. Can I offer you wine?”

“No, thank you.”

Serana noticed that Savos was not afraid to make eye contact with both of them. He was watching them carefully, almost curiously. She couldn’t feel him exerting any kind of power or raising any kind of defense. But then he was the Archmage. He was probably right, not to fear being alone with two vampires.

“You’re not using any illusions,” Savos was saying, with approval. “You could probably have concealed this from most of the College for some time, as long as you didn’t meet myself or Drevis face to face. It is no small thing that you have not tried to do so. I understand that you also showed yourself first to your apprentice, under conditions highly disfavorable to yourself. That is also well.”

Alexien said nothing. Savos went on: “Whatever you have become, Alexien, I do not believe that you will lie to me. So I would like to ask you to kindly explain all of this, and tell me the reasons why – if I have heard correctly – you voluntarily chose to become a vampire.”

“Thank you, Savos. A chance to explain myself is all that I came to ask of you, as a favor; it means a great deal that you would offer me such an opportunity yourself.”

And Alexien told him everything. He said more indeed than Serana would have done about their own relationship; but he stated it plainly and without embarrassment or apology. He told him of how they had opened a portal to the Soul Cairn – at that Savos sat up and paid still closer attention – and why he had been unable to pass. He enumerated what his options had been, and explained, in a calm and rational manner, why every choice had been unacceptable to him, other than the one he had made.

Then Savos turned to Serana and asked her a few probing questions, evidently (and skillfully) checking the details of Alexien’s story without directly inquiring about anything he had said. He then asked her, as if merely curious, about several technical details of vampirism, especially of the transformation itself. Serana was surprised by his knowledge of a subject that had not been his main field of study, and thought for a while that his interest was purely scholarly – until she saw that the underlying tenor of all his questions aimed indirectly at establishing whether Alexien was still himself or was in any way under her control.

Serana realized why, despite the authority exercised by Mirabelle, it was Savos who had been made Archmage.

“I see,” he finally said. Serana thought again that he looked tired. “You have my thanks – both of you – for telling me the story, and for answering my questions honestly. There is, I admit, much more that I would like to hear, particularly about this portal – you’re quite right, Alexien, that it should have been impossible. But that is for a later time.”

Savos said no more, and closed his eyes. The silence became heavy. “Then what happens now?” Alexien asked.

“A few things,” said Savos, opening his eyes again. “First, we have a formality to get out of the way. This was never in much doubt, but I officially give both of you the safe-conduct of the College of Winterhold, and I name you both guests, with all the rights and protections guaranteed thereby.”

“Both of us?” asked Serana, frowning.

Savos didn’t answer.

“I see,” said Alexien.

“I’m sorry, Alexien. I appreciate that you have been truthful with me, and I do not believe that you bear malice to any resident of Winterhold. For those reasons, among others, you will always be welcome here as a guest, if you choose to visit periodically. I hope you will.” His voice grew strained. “But I cannot allow you in your present condition to remain a ranking member of the College.”

Serana looked at Alexien. He had gone utterly still. Humans were always in motion, with the steady rise and fall of their breath, or swaying in place, or simply blinking. But Alexien was still as a stone. For a moment Serana was afraid what he might do.

Then his eyes closed once, just for a second. “I understand,” he said. His voice was flat with forced normalcy.

“I wish it weren’t necessary,” said Savos. “I regret…”

“No. Anything else would have been irresponsible of you,” said Alexien. “You’re right, of course. May I request one favor? I have some items I need from my quarters, and then the rest of my effects – would the College be so kind as to store them away for me, for a while? I may want them again, but I can’t take them with me right now, and – and currently I have nowhere else to put them.” His voice broke over the last words, but his gaze stayed level.

Savos gave a slow nod. “I think that is the least we can do. You may take as much time as you need – within reason – to set your affairs in order. I don’t want it to seem like we are throwing you out…” He hesitated. “I truly am sorry.”

“It’s fine,” said Alexien. He stood up suddenly. “I would probably have done the same, in your position. Thank you for your understanding.” He gave a bow, turned, and without even looking at Serana, walked out.

* * *

Mirabelle was waiting for them outside Alexien’s room. She took one look at his face and flinched. “Alexien…”

He inclined his head in acknowledgement, not really seeing her, and opened the wards on his door.

“Alexien,” she said again.

“Can I help you, Mirabelle?”

“I take it…”

“It didn’t go well,” Serana finished for her.

Her face fell. Alexien started to turn away, but she opened her mouth to speak again: “There was one more thing. It was driven out of my mind, with… all this.”

“Yes?”

“It… may seem like I’m rubbing salt in the wound,” said Mirabelle. “It’s about Dexion, the Moth Priest you left here. Have you… received the letter I sent on that subject?”

Alexien shook his head, still not looking at her.

“I thought not,” she said. “Well. Nothing for it; you need to know. Soon after he arrived here, after he read the Elder Scroll for you, he… his vision started to dim.”

Serana stared – then silently cursed the gods.

“It happens to all Moth Priests eventually, he said. He thinks he read without enough preparation; or it might have been something the… other vampires did to him. Whatever the reason, he went fully blind a few weeks ago. He still has his sanity, but he’ll never read another Scroll.”

Alexien nodded heavily, as if to say, _Of course_. He looked at Mirabelle. “Thank you for telling me. Is he still here?”

“He is. Would you like to see him?”

“Before I go, yes. To apologize to him.”

With that, he opened the door and stepped inside. He looked undecided for a moment, but left it ajar just long enough for Serana to follow; then he shut it again almost in Mirabelle’s face, and recast the wards.

* * *

Alexien left a letter for Brelyna. He did not show it to Serana, before he sealed it and placed it on his desk.

He said little to Serana about anything, in fact. She didn’t blame him. It was a hard lesson to learn. And he had been patient enough with her before, when she didn’t want to talk. So she stayed nearby, to make it clear that she was there if he wanted her; but otherwise she let him have his space.

She hoped it wouldn’t be long, because she desperately wanted to be sure that he didn’t blame her. But that could wait.

When they first got back to his rooms, he sat at his desk, put his face in his hands, and was still. After a few minutes he got up and walked to his bookshelves, and started pulling certain books down and putting them in his pack. A few volumes he held longingly in his hands for a while, before replacing them on the shelf.

After that, he packed some other small items, gathered up staff and Scroll, and went to see Dexion. He didn’t tell Serana _not_ to follow, so she assumed he wanted her with him. To the Moth Priest Alexien was formal and polite, but distant. Serana paid little attention to what they said. After a while Alexien bowed, bade him farewell, and walked out.

It was already night. Alexien headed for the courtyard, and then without turning aside or looking back, went straight out through the doors of the College. He seemed glad that no one met them.

They traveled south. Serana wondered if Alexien had a destination in mind, or was just walking. A few hours before morning she put a hand on his shoulder, and said they should make camp. He nodded absently.

“You tried to warn me,” he said some time later. They were sitting on a felled tree. It was cold, but they had no fire, for the cold no longer bothered either of them.

“It’s something we all have to learn,” said Serana. “I hoped I would be wrong, this time. I sort of was. I know this doesn’t help right now, Alexien, but that went as well as it possibly could have done. It’s clear you have true friends, at the College.”

“Had. I had true friends there.”

“I’m sorry.”

He was quiet. “I’m sorry for this,” he said. “I should have listened to you. I don’t know what I was expecting or hoping, but… I’m afraid I’m not going to be good company for a while.”

“That’s all right. You don’t have to entertain me, Alexien.” She hesitated. “I’m here for you, you know. I know it was your home; I can only imagine how hard…”

Alexien shook his head. “It wasn’t just my home, in the sense of the place I lived. The College saved my life. Figuratively, but truly. It was where I learned who I am. It _was_ who I am. A Wizard of the College of Winterhold. That was all I ever wanted to be, even before I knew what it was.”

Serana said nothing. But she moved a little closer, and Alexien did not move away.

“Faralda was the first person I met there, you know.” A flicker of a smile played on his features. “She stopped me at the gate, the day I arrived. She didn’t want to let me in. I was too young and inexperienced. I rattled off all the books I had read, as if that would impress her. Finally she raised a shield and told me to prove I was good enough. I used Illusion, and made her think I had torn down her ward and covered her in ice. Savos happened to be walking by, and he thought it was the funniest thing he’d seen in years. Faralda was still shivering, and even she laughed.”

“How did you come to start traveling for them?”

“That started a little after I became a full wizard. I was always visiting Winterhold, trying to convince the locals to let me cure them of whatever little ailments and injuries I could. Most of them thought I was trying to experiment on them. Eventually they started to trust me. One day I healed a farmer’s broken arm, and his elderly mother brought out a small box she had received from her grandmother’s grandmother. It had a scroll that the College had believed lost during the Great Collapse; one of the mages had it with him in the village, but then he died in the accident. I brought it back in triumph to Urag. The rest was his idea, believe it or not. But Savos and Tolfdir thought it a good one. I was elated. It was like… like I finally had a purpose in life.”

Serana smiled, and said something encouraging. Alexien smiled back and fell silent again.

“I’m sorry again,” he said suddenly. “I realize this isn’t what you thought you were signing up for, being with me. I’m… technically a homeless vagabond now, I guess. And all but penniless.” The thought seemed to strike him for the first time, and he put his head in his hands. “Gods, where am I even going to go?”

Serana laughed suddenly. Alexien looked at her. “Sorry,” she said, trying to hide her smile. “It’s just… you’re a vampire lord, Alexien, and you’re probably one of the strongest mages in Tamriel. And you’re distressed over where you can go now.” She shook her head. “You could go wherever you want, and no one could stop you. You could conquer your own little fiefdom and rule it like a king. And I bet the thought never even entered your head.”

“That’s not… no. Even if that’s true – that’s not me, Serana.”

“I know. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. With you.” She hesitantly reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

His hand closed over hers. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Damn right. But that’s not the point. The point is… look, we still have a lot to do. And I don’t know what comes after that yet. But whatever it is… we’ll do it together.”

“That’s… that’s all that matters to me, Serana. Really.”

“In that case, everything’s fine.” She put a hand on his chin, and made him meer her eyes. “It may not feel like it now, but it is. I promise. I told you, I’m not going anywhere. That’s one thing you’ll never have to worry about.”

“Homeless vagabonds together, then? I suppose there are worse fates.”

Serana laughed again. “If it comes to it. But come on, Alexien. You’re a noble; you can always go back to High Rock. Which I’ve always wanted to see, by the way. And… well… once all this is done, we can always live together at the Castle.” Her face twisted. “Once it’s been… cleaned out.”

“I know perfectly well you don’t want to do that.”

“Not really, no. But it’s an option.”

Alexien shook his head in thought. “We could always just travel. It might be nice, without anything trying to kill us, without having to worry about saving the damn world. Maybe I could even start a clinic again, in whatever cities or towns we pass through. Healers are always welcome everywhere.”

“Maybe not vampire healers,” said Serana, with a smile. “But that’s not a bad idea. You’d just have to agree to be paid in gold instead of rare books.”

“Hold on, let’s not make any crazy decisions yet.”

Serana snorted. She laid her head on Alexien’s shoulder and was quiet for a few minutes. “That would be nice, actually,” she said. “I think I’d enjoy traveling like that, with you.”

Alexien finally smiled. “So it’s settled. All we have to do first is prevent the world from falling into imminent ruin, and then…” His face fell, and he put his head in his hands again. “Fuck.”

“What is it?”

“I just remembered… we can’t even do that. Dexion.”

Serana cast about for a response to that. But there was nothing to say.

Alexien stood up. “On that note – I choose to give up and go to bed. I know I don’t actually need to, but… I’m just going to lie down and pretend everything will be better in the morning.” He looked back at her once. “Thanks for trying, Serana.”

* * *

Like so often lately, Alexien had nightmares. The first he did not remember. But for the second, he was sitting again on that same fallen tree with Serana, having again the same conversation; but there were things unseen in the darkness around him, watching. He poured out his despair to Serana, and the things came closer. But this time she had no words of comfort for him, no promises of fidelity. She only shook her head and stood over him. Her claws slashed across his face, and he could no longer see her in the night: she had taken away his vampirism, because he was unworthy of it. He heard her walking away, leaving him alone in the darkness. And the things closed in.

Then the darkness changed, and Alexien knew that he was no longer dreaming. Cold fear, real fear, slithered up his spine. He had been here before – only last time his eyes couldn’t penetrate the unearthly gloom. Now he saw that he was standing on a high tower, under a night sky of poisonous green. The tower rose up out of a churning sea dark and thick as ink.

And he knew he was not alone.

“Somehow I thought I might be seeing you tonight,” said Alexien.

The voice of Hermaeus Mora answered him: **“** **Indeed. The time has come, my seeker, for us to make a bargain together.”**


	22. All These I Will Give You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Other than one mini-chapter, I think this is the fastest I've ever put out an update. But I was excited to keep writing past that cliff-hanger. So many thanks again to everyone!

Alexien raised his eyes, and saw Him.

Before he had only glimpsed a single huge eye, with a shadowy mass writhing behind it in the half-light. Now he took in the full measure of horror. The single bulbous eye was still there, watching him from within a shroud of darkness that even Alexien’s vampire eyes could not pierce. What he had taken for tentacles were more like spidery tendrils of power, only partially solid; but embedded in them were more of those inhuman eyes, always opening in one place and closing in another, like a dreadful symphony. Only the central eye stayed open and fixed on him. It radiated cold majesty, and Alexien felt, felt in his soul, the awful greatness of the Being before him.

He didn't know whether to vomit, or fall to his knees and worship.

“Absolutely not,” he choked out. “I’m not interested in making any deals with you.”

The eye blinked, and as before Alexien sensed that instead of anger, the Prince of Fate was merely amused. **“** **On this occasion, you would be wise to listen to my offer. You know full well your own desperation.”**

“And I’m sure you had nothing at all to do with that,” said Alexien. “But now that I see you, I know it can’t possibly be as bad as I feared. I always have choices, and you’re always the worst of them.”

 **“** **Your ingratitude is displeasing and unjust,”** said the voice, **“** **but I hold not your ignorance against you. You will learn better in time. But how, mortal, can you read the Elder Scrolls, how can you defeat your enemy, now that poor Dexion cannot help you?”**

There was a test, a trap, somewhere in the question, and Alexien did not want to face it. But something else clicked in his brain, and he switched back to accusation. “That was you,” he said. “At any point before now – there were so many times I could have stopped at the College and found out before now, but didn’t. And it was always because of you: because I feared that the other wizards would sense your influence on me, when you bound my tongue; or that they would know about your ‘gift’ the Oghma Infinium, or…”

 **“For** **that you have none to blame but yourself. Yours were the choices to make, and yours too are the consequences to bear. But I ask a second time – and will not ask a third – how will you now learn from the Scrolls that which you need to defeat your enemy?”**

“We’ll go to Cyrodiil,” said Alexien without hesitation. “Dexion isn’t the only Moth Priest in the world. I don’t know why I didn’t see it last night; it’s as simple as traveling to the White-Gold Tower and finding another.”

 **“The** **Moth Priests, alas, have been scattered since the fall of the Tower. Do you have time to search for them?”**

“We will, and we’ll find them, however long it takes.”

The eye somehow conveyed a smile. **“** **That, indeed, is a choice that you may make. Are you prepared to accept its consequences, my seeker? Can you even imagine what they will be?”**

Alexien saw the trap opening up before him. But he had to know. “I don’t suppose you’ll just tell me?”

 **“Today** **I will do so freely and gladly, so that when you agree to my bargain, it will be with equal freedom and gladness.”** The eye closed once, and opened again, closer. **“** **Your enemy is no longer content to bide his time, and wait on your convenience. Your success is known to him; the passage of three Elder Scrolls across Skyrim cannot be hidden. What you will do with them, he yet knows not; nor will he give you the opportunity. Already he prepares to strike. And many are those who will perish in blood and terror, if he strikes before you.”**

Alexien clenched his fist. “You bastard,” he said through gritted teeth. He had to force himself to let go the power he was drawing in. “You could have told us this at any time. At literally any time. But you waited until now to back me into a corner. If I don’t agree to your deal, innocents will die, will they? And I suppose that’ll be all my fault?”

 **“I** **make no accusations. I merely inform you what the consequences will be if you choose to go to Cyrodiil, instead of hearing what I offer.”**

He tried to think of an alternative. But if what Hermaeus Mora told him was true – and he could not but believe that, however dishonest the intent, the facts were correct – then he already knew what choice he would make. He couldn’t allow Harkon to inflict death and ruin, if he had the power to prevent it. And the Lord of Secrets knew it.

“What is your offer?” he asked. His voice sounded defeated even to himself. “And what is your price? My pledge of eternal servitude, I assume?”

 **“** **Nothing so… permanent. Not yet. It is a fair bargain that I offer. I have three pieces of information for you, my seeker. Without all three you have no hope of surviving, no chance at all to triumph over your foe. Three shards of knowledge.”** The eye moved closer, and when it spoke it was in his ear, whispering like the caress of a dead lover. **“** **And you, mortal, have three Elder Scrolls. The trade is balanced.”**

“The Elder –” Alexien stumbled in disbelief. “You want the Elder Scrolls?”

The voice did not answer.

“And… what exactly is the information you offer?”

 **“First,** **I will reveal to you what you have sought all along: the location of Auriel’s Bow. What use are the Scrolls to you, if you have that? Second, I will tell you of another weapon, of whose existence you have not yet guessed, yet without which you will most assuredly fail, as assuredly as you will fail without the Bow. And third, and most important of all – I will show you yourself.”**

“Myself?” He was too confused to be suspicious.

 **“** **Indeed,”** the voice purred. **“** **And that is the most valuable secret of all. Are you not curious how you were able to open the doors of Oblivion? Or why Durnehviir saw in you an equal? I know it. I am Hermaeus Mora, and I do not lie.”**

What that could mean, Alexien could not possibly guess. But he was sure it was true, and equally sure that it was something he did not want to know. He turned again to accusation, to delay what he knew was inevitable.

“You knew this moment would come,” he said. “All along. You waited until now, when we’re desperate, when I – when I have nothing left.”

 **“I** **knew. Just as I know that you will agree.”**

“Because you’ve seen my fate?”

 **“Because** **you have no other choice whose consequences you are willing to bear.”**

“Answer me truthfully: How long have you been planning all of this?”

The eye gleamed, perhaps with amusement. **“** **For many a long age before you were born, little mageling. I have always known that you would come – only I did not know that it would be you.”**

Alexien felt that he was only putting off the moment of decision. But he still had to be sure that giving the Scrolls to Hermaeus Mora wouldn’t be still worse than letting Harkon have his way. “Why do you even want the Elder Scrolls?”

 **“For** **reasons you cannot fathom. Among mortals I am held to be a… hoarder of knowledge. That is perhaps as close as you can come to the truth.”**

“But what will you do with them?”

 **“Keep** **them.”**

Alexien fell silent a long while. He felt time slip by, under the patient watch of Hermaeus Mora. He did not hasten him, did not push. He already knew, as well as Alexien did himself, what he would say.

“How would I give you the Scrolls?”

Somehow the voice smiled. **“** **Fear not on that account. Only give your consent, and the Scrolls will find their way to me. You need but say that you accept my terms.”**

He wished Serana were there. She would know what to do, what to say; she would know what questions to ask. Or perhaps her presence would just be there to encourage him, to reassure him that he was doing the right thing. It didn’t matter now.

“I accept your terms,” he said. “Three Elder Scrolls for the three pieces of knowledge I need.”

As soon as the words left his lips, there was a pressure on his temples, some power slithering and writhing against his skull, trying to force its way into his head –

 **“A** **worthy bargain, Alexien.”**

Hermaeus Mora was speaking, but he could barely pay attention –

 **“Prepare** **yourself. This will be… uncomfortable.”**

And his world turned to pain.

* * *

“Alexien!” Serana was shouting.

He was lying down in their tent. Serana was leaning over him, hands on his shoulders. He realized she had been shaking him.

“Oh thank the Eight,” she breathed.

“Serana?” He sat up slowly. “What’s wrong?”

“You should be telling me that,” she said. “You were… screaming. In your sleep. I couldn’t wake you.”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. He put his hands to his head. “Just… fuck.”

“So, what is it?”

Alexien stood up. “We have work to do.”

“Hold on,” said Serana. She put a hand on his chest and forced him to stay still. “First you have to tell me what’s going on.”

“Good news or bad news first?”

“Really? Fine. Good.”

“I know where Auriel’s Bow is.”

Serana’s lips parted in surprise, her brow furrowed in confusion. “How…” She got it. “What did you trade for it?”

“That’s… the not-so-good part. An Elder Scroll.”

Her eyebrows shot up, and then she dove to the ground, hands searching amid their baggage. “It was right here,” she said in panic; “I left it right… left _them_ right… here…” Slowly her face turned to him. “Alexien. The other two Scrolls are gone too.”

“Yeah. So. The thing about that… there were two other pieces of information. The trade was sort of a package-deal.”

“What other facts could even the Lord of Secrets have possibly told you that were worth _an Elder Scroll_ apiece?”

“The second was another weapon. And it’s on our way. Unfortunately there’s a significant probability that trying to claim it will get me killed – but we need it, if we’re going to have any chance.”

“Lovely. And the third?”

“I... don’t think I can explain it very well yet,” Alexien admitted. He started packing up their things in a hurry. “I’m still trying to process it myself. I’ll have to show you, next time something tries to kill us.”

“Lovely,” Serana said again. “Alexien, you know we need to talk about this –”

“We will. On the way. He showed me – we don’t have any time to waste.”

Serana raised an eyebrow. “And where are we going?”

“Back to Winterhold. It’s time, Serana. We’re going to go to Castle Volkihar and put an end to all of this. But we need allies, and I want to try the College first. Then… how fast can we travel, now?”

“Fast. We can run all night indefinitely, if we stay well fed. Why?”

“We have another stop to make, and you’re not going to like it.”

“What – oh gods, you want to visit the Dawnguard again, don’t you?”

“No choice,” said Alexien. “Things are worse than we thought. Come on, I’ll explain while we run. We have a lot to do, and not long to do it. And if we’re not fast enough, Harkon is going to soak Skyrim in blood.”

* * *

“Alexien?” Faralda said in surprise. She was standing guard at the gates of the College. “I know Savos said you could return as a guest, but this is a bit sooner –”

“No time for this,” said Alexien. “Get Savos, I have to speak to him at once. And Mirabelle. And Tolfdir too, actually, and you. Just everyone. Get everyone together, Faralda. It’s life and death. More than.”

“What are you –”

“No time,” Alexien said again, forcefully. “It might already be too late.”

Faralda glanced at Serana. “She’ll have to wait in the courtyard.”

“Fine; but we all have to talk _now_. This isn’t about me trying to get back into the College; I don’t even care about that right now. _Come on_.”

She was still suspicious, but Alexien’s manner shocked her. “Right this way.”

Faralda led them over the bridge. The wards parted for Serana; she noticed Alexien flinch when he felt it, but he said nothing. Once in the courtyard, Alexien apologized to Serana, and he and Faralda went to talk to the leaders of the College.

Serana at least had time to enjoy the excitement: she could see lights flicking on one after another throughout the buildings, hear the chaos of feet running up and down corridors, of mages striding through the courtyard and swapping rumors in hurried, hushed voices. Tolfdir she saw walking toward the Archmage’s tower, looking calm but grim.

She heard footsteps coming closer, and smelled a familiar scent.

“Hello, Brelyna,” she said cautiously.

“Hi, Serana.” She walked up beside Serana, and watched the tumult with her. “You could hear me?”

“And smell you.”

“I was… sorry to hear about Alexien.”

“Me too.”

“But you’re back?”

Serana shook her head. “Not for long. Alexien needed to talk to Savos and the other masters.”

“Can you tell me what about?” Brelyna asked hesitantly.

“I don’t see why not. Alexien and I are going into battle. Probably the last one. But we can’t beat Harkon – my father – alone; and worse, he’s planning a series of attacks throughout Skyrim. If we don’t stop him, it’s… it’s going to get bad.”

“And he wants to try to convince the College to help?”

“Yeah.”

Brelyna was silent a while. “It won’t work. They’re not going to send mages to assault a vampire castle with you.”

“I know. That’s not why we’re here. He wants your people to try to protect some of the holds, in case we’re not fast enough. And… to see what you can do to contain the fallout, if we lose.”

“If you lose? Won’t it be, like… the end of the world, then?”

“Only if you’re alive. For vampires it’ll be great.”

Brelyna went pale. With Serana she watched more mages running about the courtyard, talking in panicked whispers.

“You’re still looking for allies, though?” she asked suddenly.

“We can’t beat my father alone,” Serana repeated. She looked tired. “He has too many retainers, too many thralls. At this point it’s still just a hypothesis that he’s even killable. So, yeah: we need all the help we can get.”

“Good,” said Brelyna. “Because I have something to show you.”

Serana glanced at her suspiciously.

Brelyna took a step back, raised her left hand, and summoned a ward. It glowed silver-blue.

“Are you sure about this?” Serana asked. “Last time you tried to stop me, it didn’t go well. And do you really want to fight for a place at the end-of-the-world party?”

“Less talking, more magic,” said Brelyna, with a smirk. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Serana shrugged, and threw lightning at Brelyna. It struck the ward’s surface with a sound like a gong and ricocheted back; Serana only just countered the bolt before it hit her in the chest.

“A reflective ward?” she asked. “That’s impressive, if that’s what you were intending to do.”

“It is!”

“In that case, well done.” Serana extended a hand towards Brelyna; with some hesitation, she shook it. “A promise is a promise: If you’re really sure this is what you want, I’ll tell Alexien you’re ready to come with us.”

“There’s nothing I want more.”

They exchanged small talk while they waited, the conversation friendly but strained. Some time later Alexien came walking out the double doors of the main tower. He leaned wearily on his staff.

“Well, that was… unpleasant,” he told Serana, in a tight voice. “But they agreed. They’re not sending anyone with us – I didn’t expect them to – but they have enough people to protect Winterhold, Windhelm, and Dawnstar. Maybe Whiterun, if they can get there fast enough; but it’s a crossroads, and Harkon will definitely hit it. And Savos thinks he can –”

“Alexien,” Serana interrupted. She gestured at Brelyna.

“Oh,” he said, surprised. He gave a hasty bow. “It’s –”

“She wants to come with us. I think she should.”

“I should,” agreed Brelyna. “You need me. You know you do. Let me help.”

“Brelyna… this isn’t exactly going to be a casual jaunt through Skyrim,” Alexien said seriously. “We’re attacking a castle filled with ancient vampires, one of whom we surmise has the protection of a Daedric Lord and is functionally invincible. There’s no shame in backing out of this one. The odds are overwhelmingly likely that we’re going to our deaths.”

“That’s why you need me,” said Brelyna. “I know how bad it might get. Serana and I have been talking about it. And I’m _not_ staying behind this time, Alexien. If I can help, I will; and if you don’t let me come with you, I’ll follow on my own. I’m _going_ to be there with you at the castle, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“She’s ready,” added Serana. “She won’t hold us back; she might even save our lives. And she’s old enough to decide for herself.”

Alexien still looked ambivalent. “Brelyna… are you sure you want to fight side-by-side with two vampires?”

“If it’s you and Serana – yes, absolutely.”

“All right,” said Alexien finally. “All right. Serana and I still have a lot to do. Meet us in Solitude on 28 Rain’s Hand, and we’ll move out from there.”

“But… that’s less than two weeks away,” said Brelyna.

“And that might already be too late,” said Alexien. “Be there in time, and you can join us; but we can’t wait another day.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll be there. I promise. What will you and Serana be doing?”

“We’re going to Riften next,” said Serana, with a sour look. “We have to talk a band of fanatical vampire-hunters into fighting with us instead of killing us. It’s going to be a grand old time.”

“Speaking of which,” said Alexien, “are you ready to go?”

“First we need to stop by the village for… you know,” she said, with a glance at Brelyna.

Brelyna rolled her eyes. “Come on, I’m not an idiot. I know what vampires eat.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Not really. But I bet Alexien heals the people he feeds on or leaves them a potion or something.”

“He literally does.”

“Time to go,” Alexien interrupted. “Brelyna – we’ll see you soon. And thank you.”

* * *

“Just so we’re clear,” said Alexien, “I already know this is a terrible idea, so you don’t have to say anything.”

“And yet here we are,” said Serana. “Some day we’ll have to discuss what conclusion logically follows from the premise ‘ _This is a terrible idea_.’”

“If we survive this – and then exactly three more terrible ideas after this – you can lecture me to your heart’s content.”

“Looking forward to it.” Serana sniffed the air. “Sorine’s on guard. That’s good, at least; she might possibly let you speak a few words before shooting us.”

Alexien nodded, and started walking forwards. It was just past dawn, and they had been hiding in the woods near Fort Dawnguard. Now they left cover, Alexien in the lead, and started to approach the outer palisade. As Serana had said, Sorine stood on the parapet, crossbow at the ready. Alexien was surprised how long it took her to notice them.

“Halt!” she cried, training the crossbow on them.

“It’s us, Sorine,” said Alexien. He held his arms out in a gesture of non-aggression.

“Alexien! It’s good to… wait. What’s…?”

“Please remember that I’m doing this voluntarily.” Alexien slowly reached a hand up, and pulled back his hood. At once the brightness stabbed his eyes, and his skin itched. Even in the sun, someone like Sorine couldn’t miss his amber eyes.

She went pale, and raised her crossbow again. “Stendarr preserve us.”

“We need to talk to Isran,” said Alexien. “And you. I won’t bother asking you to let me in; we can wait here.”

“Whatever it is you’re planning…”

“I’m showing myself in broad daylight, which is rather uncomfortable by the way; and all I’m asking is to talk, while we stay on this side of the palisade and you stay on that side and point a crossbow at us. If I’m planning something against you, I’m truly the world’s stupidest vampire.”

Sorine considered that for a moment. She nodded but did not lower her weapon. “How long?”

“About two weeks ago. We don’t have a lot of time, Sorine; and it’s important.”

She said something to another Dawnguard member they couldn’t see behind the wall, but never took her eyes off them. Several times her eyes flicked to Serana.

“Yeah,” said Serana, “it was me. But only because he asked me to, believe it or not.”

“I choose _not_ ,” said Sorine.

“And I assume my word doesn’t count for anything on this point?” Alexien asked.

Sorine snorted, and kept the crossbow level.

Alexien lowered his voice to speak to Serana: “Out of curiosity, if she shoots us, are we fast enough to dodge?”

“An arrow from a regular bow, sure. I don’t know about a crossbow bolt. Probably not, or vampire-hunters wouldn’t love them so much. Maybe at night, definitely not by day.”

“Talk so I can hear you,” Sorine ordered.

“We were just saying how completely screwed we are if you decide to shoot one of us, so please don’t.”

No answer. They stayed there, tense and silent, until footsteps approached. Isran mounted the stairs, flanked by two more Dawnguard soldiers with crossbows. One was an orc Serana didn’t know; the other was Brynhild.

“I knew it,” Isran growled. “I knew this would happen, and no one believed me.”

“Nice to see you too, Isran,” said Alexien.

“You have ten seconds to say your piece before I order my men to fire.”

“A fast-talking Breton I may be, but even I will need more than ten seconds to stave off the end of days.”

A moment of stunned silence followed. Isran narrowed his eyes, but it was clear from his face that they had caught his interest. “Talk, then.”

“I’ll start at the end: I know where Auriel’s Bow is. We did what we said we were going to do, and found the three Elder Scrolls. To get the last one, I had to do this. The vampires had hidden it where none but another vampire could reach it.”

That was an interesting way of phrasing the truth, Serana thought.

“Then tell us where the Bow is, and we’ll go get it ourselves.”

“You’ll never make it there in time,” said Alexien. “We can, and will; and then we’re going to use the Bow to kill Harkon once and for all.”

A pause. “In time? In time for what?”

“That’s why we’re here. Serana, would you mind explaining?”

“You said it yourself, in your last letter,” Serana told Isran. “My father has been preparing for something big. Now we know what that is. He knows we have the Scrolls, and he’s hastening his plans in the hope that he can finish us all off before we have a chance to act.”

“Two days ago we were in Winterhold,” Alexien added. “We ran all night, twice, to get here. There’s no time to lose.”

“We’re still not hearing any details about your father’s plans,” said Sorine.

“Then I’ll summarize: He’s invading Skyrim,” said Serana. She paused to let that sink in. “Or he will soon. He has agents in all the major holds, making preparations as we speak. He’s desperate, and so all the more dangerous. If we don’t stop him it’ll be a massacre. A whole chain of massacres all across the province.”

Sorine and the two Dawnguard soldiers looked at each other uncertainly.

“Even if that’s true,” said Isran, “what do you expect us to do about it?”

“I’m sorry,” said Serana, “but I thought this was the Dawnguard. Dawn- _guard_. Isn’t _guarding_ the people of Skyrim _from this exact scenario_ your whole reason for existing?”

“We want you to help protect the holds while we confront Harkon,” Alexien explained. “The College is covering Winterhold, Windhelm, and Dawnstar, and they’re going to try to get to Whiterun in time. If you can protect Riften and the southern holds as far as Helgen and Falkreath, that’s all we can ask. You might also want to dispatch someone to Whiterun in case the College doesn’t make it.” He hesitated. “A little help to send with us against Harkon would also be appreciated.”

“The College?” Isran scoffed. “You think those spoiled, soft-handed bookworms are going to do anything about this?”

“They’ll have to, if you don’t.”

“And what about the cities and towns in the west?” Sorine asked. “Solitude, Markarth, and the others?”

“There’s no time. They’ll have to fend for themselves, if attacked. But the Dawnguard can still help here. Lives depend on it.”

“And how many of us do you think we should send?”

“Everyone. Abandon Fort Dawnguard; what does it matter if you keep a fortress on the borders of Morrowind, if the rest of Skyrim falls?”

“If Harkon’s as dangerous as you say,” Isran growled, “we should stay here and fortify the keep. Make him come to us. It might be the only chance we have against him.”

“It is, if you’re willing to let him run rampant through the rest of the province,” said Alexien. “But we have more hope against him than you know.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll tell you privately, or not at all.”

Isran stared. Serana could see the gears in his head turning, looking for the trap. Finally he said, “Serana stands back. You stay there. You make _any_ move I don’t like, you’re dead.”

“Agreed.”

“Open the gate,” Isran ordered. The palisade opened, and a few seconds later Isran stepped outside. Serana withdrew some distance back.

She could see Alexien whispering hurriedly with Isran, too low even for her hearing. Surprise deepened to shock on Isran’s face. A few times he said something; Serana caught the word _dragon_ , and perhaps _Daedra_ , but little else. Isran raised a hand to cover his eyes and looked towards the sun. Alexien nodded gravely.

“Prove it,” she heard Isran say.

Alexien shook his head, and said something too quiet to catch. But Isran looked satisfied.

After that he retreated back inside the palisade. The gate closed. He appeared again on the parapet, and cleared his throat.

“We’re not friends,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, including the crowd gathering inside the fort. “And no vampire is welcome in Fort Dawnguard, including you. But for now we’re allies. Temporarily, until we’ve destroyed a greater enemy. The Dawnguard will protect this part of Skyrim; we’ll even protect Whiterun – unless you trust those milk-drinkers from Winterhold to do it for you!” This last he shouted over his shoulder to the Dawnguard; they met him with jeers. He turned back to Alexien. “And… anyone stupid enough to go with you is free to do so.”

The jeers cut off at once, and absolute silence fell.

“I’ll go,” Sorine said suddenly.

“And me,” said Brynhild.

“Fine,” said Isran. “Get going then. The rest of us have real work to do.” He stepped down, and could be heard giving a series of rapid orders.

“I don’t believe it,” said Serana. “That actually worked.”

“No one’s more surprised than I am,” said Alexien.

“What did you tell Isran?”

Alexien shook his head: Sorine and Brynhild were approaching.

“I’ll admit,” he told them, “I’m equal parts glad to see you, and surprised you’re joining us.”

“Don’t get too used to it,” said Brynhild. “We’re coming with you to kill vampires who need killing. That’s all.”

“I trust you that far,” Sorine added. “Coming here like this, you’re either telling the truth or you’re an idiot. And whatever else you are, you’re at least intelligent.”

“Sometimes,” said Serana, with a smile. Alexien jabbed her with an elbow.

“So, what’s the plan?” asked Sorine.

“Serana and I have two more errands to run. After that, we’re meeting in Solitude; another mage from the College will join us there. Then we’re going to knock down Harkon’s front door and kick his teeth in.”

“When?”

“Be there on 28 Rain’s Hand.”

Sorine raised an eyebrow. “We’ll have to change horses several times, to make it,” she said.

Serana reached into a pocket, and pulled out a heavy-looking bag. It jingled as she handled it to Sorine. “This should do it.”

“Where did you –” Alexien started.

“Vampire _princess,_ remember?”

Sorine hefted the bag in her hand. “We’ll be there.”

“If _we_ aren’t, it’s because we’re dead,” said Serana. “In that case… do what you can to protect Solitude, for as long as you can.”

“Until Sovngarde comes,” Brynhild promised.

Alexien nodded, and he and Serana left. Every hour counted, and they still had far to run to reach Kilkreath.


	23. The Break of Dawn

It was over those days that Alexien learned both the limits of what a vampire could do physically, and that there were things he _could_ do that he hoped never to have to do again.

As Serana had said, for instance, it was entirely possible for a vampire to run at speeds no human could ever match, and to maintain that speed all night, every night, night after night, more or less indefinitely. It was also nearly as pleasant as having his lungs pulled out through his mouth and being dragged over a mile of burning gravel.

He mentioned it once to Serana, who insisted that he was imagining it.

“There’s no reason for your lungs to ache,” she said. “Your body isn’t dependent on getting enough air for physical movement anymore.”

And indeed, Serana seemed completely unaffected by the pace of travel. Maybe it was a pureblood thing.

Maintaining such a pace also required that they feed much more frequently: at least twice a night, and preferably a third time when they settled down to rest over the day. Accordingly they had to be less choosy. Caravans of sleeping merchants were ideal, but a few times they assaulted lonely travelers who were very much awake and not at all willing. They were careful not to kill; but Alexien was still clearly shaken.

“It’s kinder than what my father will do to them if we’re not fast enough,” Serana told him. But she seemed to be trying to soothe her own conscience as well.

So they ran, and kept running.

During the days they tried to find some shady place to rest. This was easy enough among the mountains and forests of the Rift; but once they came to the wide treeless plains around Whiterun, shelter from the sun grew ever rarer, and they had to stop where they could.

One afternoon they huddled under the outcropping of a rocky tor, in the only patch of cool shadow for miles around. After a short sleep in the morning, they passed the time in conversation, usually bantering about nothing at all and trying to ignore what was before them. But ignoring it became harder and harder, the further they traveled. Serana had been growing silent and thoughtful. And so Alexien decided to try to talk to her seriously. He had a guess what was bothering her.

“Serana,” he started. She looked at him. “Look, we… I’m sorry we have to do this. I can’t imagine…”

“Going up against my father, you mean?” she asked, in a flat voice.

He nodded; but she said no more, so he went on: “I’m not going to say I can do this without you, because we both know I can’t. But if you’re… if you don’t…”

Serana gave a hollow chuckle. “You can just say it, Alexien. ‘Kill him.’ We’re going to go kill my father. And no, I know you can’t do this without me. Frankly I’m not sure we can even pull it off together. But it has to be done. No – I have to do it. To me, it’s more like… more like you’re coming with me, than me going with you. It’s my task. But I’m glad you’ll be there with me. I don’t think… I couldn’t do it without you, either. I’m not sure I could even bring myself to try.”

“You know I’m with you, no matter what. Good idea, terrible idea, doesn’t matter.”

“I know. And thank you,” she said.

“You don’t have to thank me, Serana. At this point it should just be _assumed_ that of course I’ll help you, in any way I can.”

She gave a smile. “That’s why I’m thanking you.”

They fell silent a while. The wind played through the tall grasses on the plain. Somewhere in the distance they could even hear the trumpeting of a mammoth, carried faintly on the air.

“I always kind of knew this day would come,” Serana said suddenly. “Facing him. Sometimes, on particularly bad days, when he was… cruel, I even fantasized about it. I dreamed of being strong enough to fight him myself, and practiced my magic all the harder. Or I imagined what it would be like if one of the heroes from my books came to life and showed up at the castle. You know, riding in on a white horse, slaying the monster, saving the day – and the maiden, I guess.” She shook her head. “But he wasn’t always that bad. Usually he would try to make it up to us. Then I’d feel guilty for entertaining those fantasies, and I’d try to be a good daughter, to make it up to _him_. But it was always uncomfortable, because deep down part of me always knew what he was, and always knew that… that one day he’d kill us, if we didn’t kill him.”

“Serana…”

“I always thought him killing us was more likely,” she continued. “I didn’t even think it was possible for me to beat him. Certainly not alone. I saw several attempted coups, several times when he _should_ have died, but somehow survived everything they threw at him. I just internalized that he was invincible. And pushed those fantasies down, and pretended that everything was fine. But impossible or not, I still knew that one day I’d have to try.”

“And now that day is here,” said Alexien. “I can’t imagine what it’s like for you. I wish we didn’t have to do it, wish I could spare you this. I can’t even promise that everything will be okay. But I can promise you, Serana, that whatever happens, good or bad – however it all goes down – I’ll be there with you. You at least won’t have to face it alone.”

“I know,” she said. Her hand found his, and she gripped it tight. “I told you, I don’t think I could do this otherwise.” She fell silent for a while, then: “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why did you tell Isran – you said we have more hope against my father than it appeared. I don’t think you just meant Auriel’s Bow.”

“No,” said Alexien after a moment. “No, I didn’t just mean the Bow.”

Serana turned to face him. “What did Hermaeus Mora tell you?”

For a long time Alexien stared out over the plain. Serana knew he was looking for words.

“I still don’t really understand it,” he said. “But I’ll try to explain. Remember, the first day we met, the word written on that wall – the one I could read, even though I had no idea what the language even was?”

“Which we later determined to be dragon-speech,” said Serana, nodding. “When we found the second word in Saarthal.”

“Exactly.”

“So… why could you read it?”

“I’m…” Alexien took a deep breath. “According to Hermaeus Mora, I’m something called ‘Dragonborn.’ I don’t fully understand what it means. He didn’t explain anything with words; it’s all just images in my mind.”

“Dragonborn,” repeated Serana. “I’ve read the term before, but I don’t remember where.”

“Probably the same books I know it from. Mainly historical references to the Dragonborn Emperors. Supposedly Akatosh gifted them with his own blood and his own power, so that they were in effect his sons and daughters. I would have believed it was just propaganda, except Martin Septim, the Last Dragonborn, was able to shut the doors of Oblivion in Mehrunes Dagon’s face.”

“He wasn’t the last Dragonborn, Alexien.”

“No,” he said slowly. “No, I guess he wasn’t.”

“So,” said Serana, “that’s why the portal worked. Only one of the Aedra, or someone of Aedric blood, could do it. Like Martin – or like you.”

Alexien shrugged. “Supposedly. I don’t even know if all that’s true, about Akatosh and Oblivion and the Dragonborn Emperors. I need to study it more.”

“Regardless of where it came from, it’s clear that it means… something. Being Dragonborn. It gives you some kind of power. Right?”

“Supposedly,” he repeated. “Again, nothing was explained to me, I just have images. Glimpses. But it has something to do with the power of dragons.”

“What, like breathing fire?”

Alexien frowned. “No... but also yes, somehow. And it’s related to the inscriptions in some way. My best guess? The old Dragon Priests – who I assume were real after all, and not just myth – invented a system of magic different from the one we know today; and they based their incantations on words from dragon-speech, which I can apparently learn and… I don’t know, use their spells, if I speak the words.”

But even as he spoke, Alexien knew that wasn’t right.

“So,” said Serana, after a pause, “feel like experimenting?”

“Gods, no. It’s…” He thought. “It would be like using a masterwork dagger as a butter-knife. Or melting down the statue of a god to make doorknobs. It just feels wrong, even thinking about it. Blasphemous, almost. Like the power is meant for something else.”

“Which is why you said you’d show me, next time something tries to kill us.”

“Yeah. That felt right, even then. It still feels right now.”

“So you’ll be trying a new spell – a new kind of magic entirely – for the first time, in combat, without really understanding what it is or what it’s going to do.”

“Yes. But also, somehow, no.” He shook his head again. “Again, I can’t explain it, but I _know_ what the words mean. Not just how to translate them – like the one at Saarthal meant ‘ice.’ It means more than that; and I _feel_ it.”

“Can you try to describe it for me?”

“When I think of – that word,” Alexien carefully avoided pronouncing it, “I see… winter. I see a clear lake freezing to ice, all at once. I see snow in the mountains, beautiful and deadly. I hear the wind howling outside a cabin, with a fire too small to keep out the chill. I remember that trek we made through the mountain pass, during the blizzard; I remember us camping together on the frozen sea, and how cold your body was against mine. The word means all of that at once – all the harshness and stark beauty, all rolled together.” He paused. “But that’s just what it means to me. It might mean something different, to someone else.”

She looked thoughtful. “So, does this all mean that you’re… what, the legitimate emperor?”

“Gods above, Serana, please never say that again. Don’t even think it at me.”

“Is it true, though?”

Alexien hesitated. “There are those who might think so. But seriously, please never even hint about that again to anyone.”

“All right, all right.” Serana considered making a joke about him outranking her after all, but thought better of it. For a while she sat in thought. Idly her hand played with the hem of her cloak, as she watched the sun slowly sink down. Soon they would be able to leave.

“Alexien,” she started again, “there was something else I wanted to ask you about.”

“I am at your service.”

“I was just thinking… you know how you used to practice your spellcasting every night, and I would help train you to resist mental attacks?”

“Of course. I should really pick that up again, now that you mention it; it was useful.”

“Exactly,” said Serana.

“I’m not sure I follow,” Alexien frowned. “Unless you’re trying to tell me I should stop being so lazy.”

“More like both of us. But the thing is – you’ve always had more finesse than me, at most applications of magic, while ever since we met I’ve always had more raw power than you. Only I’m not actually sure that’s true anymore. Especially not since…”

“Since I read the Oghma Infinium,” he said drily.

“And learned you’re apparently some kind of Aedric demi-god,” Serana answered. “Whatever the reason – you’ve only been getting stronger. And I need to make sure I do too. I mean… we’re partners in all this, right?”

“Of course we are. Serana, there’s still a lot you can do that’s beyond me –”

“And I want to keep it that way,” she said, smirking.

“Serana,” Alexien said seriously, “I mean it. We are, and I want us to be, equals in all this – ‘partners’ is a good word – because… because _obviously_ we are. I’ve never thought of it in any other way. No, that’s not true: if anything, I always felt like I was the one trying to keep up with _you_ ; that this was all _your_ quest, and I was just helping out.”

“I… appreciate that,” said Serana. “But I’m not the mighty Dragonborn in whom Daedric Princes take an interest. Well, I guess at least one did, but… anyway. We’re getting off track from what I was trying to say. Which was: I think we need to start training together more regularly. Like spar together every night, or practice blocking one another’s attacks, that kind of thing. And I can teach you more about Conjuration, and you can show me how to improve my Alteration. The point is, we can both help each other get better, and we should.”

“That’s… an excellent idea.”

Serana let out a sigh in relief, and realized that part of her – unreasonably, she now knew – had worried he might not agree. “I’m glad you think so,” she said.

“When do you want to start?” Alexien looked to where the sun had almost disappeared beneath the horizon. “Tonight?”

“Might as well, before we leave. Let’s start small though, as long as we’re traveling at this pace. Maybe practice maintaining a spell for a while.”

“Hm. How about this, then: One of us conjures frost, the other counterspells, and we see how long we can keep that up. Then we switch. Tomorrow we can do mental attacks.”

“Perfect,” said Serana. She turned to face him and raised a hand. “Let’s do this.”

* * *

It took them four nights to reach Kilkreath. They joined the main road from Solitude a little past midnight, at which point Alexien insisted they slow to a normal walking pace, since they were only perhaps an hour away and should preserve their strength.

“You seem to know exactly where we’re going,” said Serana. “Have you been there before?”

“Yes – at least, I’ve seen the outside. And so have you. The Temple of Meridia is the half-ruined stone structure we passed on our way to Solitude the first time. We didn’t stop and look because you were too excited to finally see the city.”

“With good reason,” she insisted. “It was magical.”

Alexien smiled. “We had fun there, certainly. I was just starting to drop my guard around you enough to enjoy your company.”

“And look where that’s led you,” said Serana. “Now you’re a vampire on your way to the shrine of a Daedric Prince known to be homicidally violent towards undead.”

“I suppose I should probably have asked you before now whether it’s true that vampires have trouble entering sacred spaces.”

“True but exaggerated. Aedric temples can be uncomfortable, but we don’t burst into flames or anything. The Daedra are fine, except that you never know how Meridia will react. She might manifest just to have the pleasure of killing us.”

“The Daedra can’t manifest in Mundus anymore,” Alexien repeated patiently.

“Not normally, but that doesn’t mean that she won’t find a way of causing us harm if we show up at her temple trying to claim an artifact that she created specifically to destroy things like us.”

“I have a theory about that. If we survive I’ll know I was right and tell you about it.”

“Please tell me it’s more than ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’” Serana groaned.

Alexien considered his words before replying. “Something big is happening in Oblivion – maybe across all the planes. Is it coincidence, that Hermaeus Mora chooses to intervene in mortal affairs by luring a Dragonborn – the first Dragonborn to appear in Tamriel for two hundred years, by the way – into a series of bargains culminating in him getting three Elder Scrolls? The very same Elder Scrolls by which a putative champion of Molag Bal long sought to conquer Nirn – and whom it just so happens that that same Dragonborn was already working against? And then Hermaeus Mora casually mentions, as if it’s unconnected, that a weapon created by yet another of the Princes, Meridia, would be useful right about now. And remember, we even saw Vaermina at Dawnstar; I have no idea how she relates to all this, but encountering this many of the Daedric Lords so close together _is not normal_.”

“Morthal,” Serana said suddenly. Alexien gave her a questioning look. “Oh… right, I don’t think I ever told you. When we were in Morthal I met that wizard Falion, who all but told me that Molag Bal was behind the vampire attacks there. He said it was one of his many plots – ‘The Lord of Lies has many pawns on the board’ was his exact phrase.”

“Leaving aside how in Oblivion he knows so much,” said Alexien, “that makes my point nicely. _Something_ is in motion. And whatever it is, sure as the grave, Meridia isn’t going to be on Molag Bal’s side.”

“So your theory _does_ boil down to ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’”

Alexien pursed his lips. “We’re here,” he said.

The Temple of Meridia was an odd mixture of the architectural features usually found at Aedric temples and Daedric shrines. A massive stone edifice of several levels, with a pleasing regularity, it yet had no main entrance: a small off-center doorway on one end led inside, then presumably up to the roof, where all sacrifices and rituals would be held under the open sky before a statue of Meridia herself. The statue, curiously, did not look as weathered as the rest of the building.

Something gave Alexien pause, and he furrowed his brow. Serana nodded at him.

“There’s someone inside,” she said. “Necromancer, by the feel of it.”

“Of course,” he sighed, adjusting his grip on his staff and checking his sword. “Because… oh.”

“Oh?”

“People in this area used to bury their dead in ground consecrated to Meridia, in the belief that nowhere could be safer from necromancy. Ironic, now; but a conjurer insane or desperate enough to work here would have access to a small army.”

Serana sighed.

“Can you dispel or deconjure them again?” Alexien asked. “If so, I’ll take the necromancer.”

“We’ll find out,” said Serana. “I’ll go first.”

She led the way inside. As soon as Alexien passed under the doorway behind her, he felt two sensations on the air, mutually hostile: the greasy cold of necromancy (strange that it still affected him so as a vampire, he reflected), and something else – a watchful burning, an awareness always just on the edge of his thoughts and at the back of his mind, that seared his consciousness wherever it touched.

It seemed that Meridia’s presence still lingered here after all.

Trying to get her on their side – or at least to deprecate her wrath – couldn’t hurt. Alexien closed his eyes and muttered a quick prayer: _Lady of Dawn_ – how dare he name her, how dare he address her? – _Lady of Dawn, look not on us with disfavor, but spare us; and we will strike down your enemy who desecrates your halls._

The sensation intensified, just for a moment, as if to make clear that it did not _have_ to heed his prayer; then it relented.

Serana stopped walking suddenly, and gave Alexien a quizzical look; then she shrugged and continued on.

They passed through a series of hallways, designed according to some logic unconcerned with mortal convenience. The stonework was decayed and cracked, but dry. They came to a heavy pair of double doors, iron unrusted, that opened before them.

The central hall had a vaulted ceiling that must have risen up to the very roof, with columned aisles on either side. It reminded Alexien of temples to the Divines, except that there was something vaguely uncomfortable about it that he couldn’t put his finger on.

In the nave was a raised platform with an altar – or what would normally be an altar, except this was a Daedric shrine, the altar would surely be outside – and in front of that, a black-robed figure stood facing them.

“Julianos save us from cliché,” said Alexien, loud enough for the figure to hear. “Is it some kind of rule that all necromancers… wait. Malkoran?”

The necromancer bowed. “You have me at a disadvantage, but I welcome you nonetheless. There’s no need for your names; they’ll be meaningless soon enough.”

“You know him?” Serana asked, surprised.

“By reputation,” said Alexien. His hand gripped the staff tighter. “He’s a two-bit warlock who used to infest the mountains between High Rock and Skyrim. Preyed on travelers, as long as they weren’t too many for him to handle.”

Malkoran ground his teeth. “Your information is out of date. I spent many years honing my craft in the way you describe, it is true. And much did I learn. But I have advanced far beyond the limits I had then.”

Alexien turned to Serana. “Please don’t tell me this is what all Breton mages sound like to the rest of the world.”

“Arrogant and wordy, monologue a lot before fights? Yeah, pretty spot-on, actually.”

He sighed. “Can we hurry this along?” he asked the necromancer. “We have other places to be.”

Malkoran laughed. “Your confidence is misplaced. You don’t even know what I’ve found here, do you?”

“I know you’re a fool for practicing necromancy in a place sacred to _Meridia_.”

“What would you call it, then, for two vampires – one of them a necromancer – to enter ‘a place sacred to Meridia?’”

“Touché,” Alexien conceded. But as they talked, his eyes roamed over a circle Malkoran had drawn on the floor behind him. Smell told him that it was of human blood; long training told him that it was designed to siphon off power from some object. On the floor in the middle of the circle was a sheathed sword.

The necromancer grinned. “Yes, you see it now? Have no fear: soon you’ll learn all about what it can do.”

He started to raise his arms. Wave after wave of nauseating cold power rolled off him; it swept over Serana and Alexien, and they both flinched; it flooded into the walls and the ground, probing through stone and earth.

Serana’s eyes went wide, and she fell into a fighting stance. “Alexien – there are a _lot_ of –”

In haste Alexien threw forward a hand; thunder cracked, and lightning fell upon Malkoran; but the spell slid off him, and he stood unaffected.

Then the shades arose. But the word ‘shades’ was inappropriate. Alexien took a close look at the nearest: It was not hazy and translucent like most ghosts, but dark and opaque, like shadow made solid. Its form was almost fully human, and it drew weapons that appeared all but truly physical.

There were several of them – then a dozen – then dozens. They flowed out of the walls like smoke, then condensed into shape; they rose up out of the floor, hands grasping the flagstones and pulling themselves up. Malkoran grinned, and pointed.

“These are different,” Serana said quickly. “Alexien, I can’t dispel them.”

One threw itself at Alexien; Serana hit it with a thunderbolt, and it dissolved in smoke. Alexien swept his staff in an arc and sent out a fan of ice. He didn’t know if cold would have any effect – but the nearest shade froze solid.

Ghosts or not, they were almost physically real; which meant that, like any other physical thing, they could be affected by temperature.

“Change of plans,” Alexien answered. “Shades are mine, then you kill the necromancer.”

He stepped forwards. The things started to close in around him. But still, he hesitated.

For a first attempt at this, he knew he should try something small, something controlled. He should make tentative trial of this new power, and see what it could do, how it felt, how it reacted. But instead he raised his staff and his hand, and summoned frost. The magic welled up from inside him, flowed through him, gathered in his palm; patterns of ice stretched out on the ground around him.

Then he closed his eyes and looked within himself, looked into a hidden corner of his memory, into a part of his mind he hadn’t even known was there; and he found the Word he had learned at Saarthal. He seized on that, held the Word in his thoughts, felt the coldness of its full meaning spread through his soul; and he poured all its power and all its strength into the spell he was already casting, the magics combining but not mixing – and all at once he released the spell, and cried aloud:

_“IIZ!”_

His first thought was that he hadn’t expected it to be so _loud_. The air snapped, and his voice, but not his voice, reverberated off the walls and the ceiling.

He fell to a knee and leaned on his staff, and couldn’t watch what happened. But he heard the blizzard, a whirlwind of frost and snow, freezing, tearing, crushing – and when he looked up, the conjured shades were no more, and a jagged coating of ice covered the floor and the columns all around.

Serana leapt from behind him, right at the stunned face of Malkoran. He blocked her first attack, a blast of lightning; but it had only been a distraction, and then her claws reached him. He didn’t have time to scream.

She turned back to Alexien, eyes wide. “By the blood,” she breathed, “I didn’t think… are you all right?”

Alexien stood up. His head ached, and he put a hand to his temple. “Will be. I overdid it, I think. I hadn’t expected it to do… that.”

Serana just watched him, a little uneasy, as he walked across the floor to Malkoran’s circle. He smudged the outer ring with his boot and stepped across, towards the sword in the middle.

“Right,” he said. “Okay. Good. I’m going to go talk to Meridia now.”

“Wait, what?”

Alexien reached out a hand, and grasped the sword.

* * *

There was light, a blinding pain, a stabbing, unbearable brightness. Alexien closed his eyes and covered his face, he shrank back from that horrible white agony; but it availed him nothing, for it was everywhere.

A shining figure appeared before him, so radiant he could not raise his eyes to it. But it was feminine; and it spoke to him in a high, clear voice, that felt to Alexien like the very fires of the sun.

 _“I am the Light and the Dawn,”_ came the voice, _“I am the radiance of morning and the splendor of rebirth, I am the fire that purifies the unclean and burns away the wicked. And I know why you are here, abomination.”_

“Great Meridia –” Alexien started.

_“You do not speak my name, scion of Coldharbour! Your very presence in my temple is blasphemy. But you have slain the necromancer, and done me a service; and for that I will allow you to make your plea.”_

Alexien bowed, averting his gaze in what he hoped was a respectful rather than a cringing manner. “Lady of Dawn,” he started again, “I thank you for hearing my prayer. You have said that you know, Goddess, why I am here. I seek a weapon, to use against your foes and mine.”

_“I know against whom you would use it. My decision was made before ever you entered my temple.”_

“And… may I inquire, Radiant One, what you have decided?”

The light flashed, and Alexien sensed a barely controlled fury. _“To destroy my enemies, by your hand. Be it so! I will give you Dawnbreaker. Wield it in my name, in the cause of my glory.”_

Alexien bowed again. “I thank you, Lady of Light. I will do as you bid. But… but if I may ask: You know what I am; why –”

_“Do not question me, creature of the dark! You will indeed please me best if you take up Dawnbreaker to smite my foes and then turn its light against your own corruption. But I see that with it you will bring ruin and death to many; and this too pleases me.”_

He looked away, and chose to remain silent.

The light started to fade, but the voice of Meridia spoke once more: _“Strike down the one you know as Harkon, and lay his court waste. Burn with my fire all who stand against you. Shatter the plans of the Enemy. Then return Dawnbreaker here to me. Do this, and I will grant you reprieve. Now go forth and do as I command: I am Meridia.”_

* * *

Alexien was back with Serana. She was watching him with a worried expression.

“I’m okay,” he said, in a tight voice. He reached out again and took the hilt. His hand was shaking. He ignored that; and since he already wore a sword on his belt, he strapped Dawnbreaker to his back.

Then he and Serana nodded to each other, and left the ruins. They still had far to go.


	24. Touching the Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, so many thanks to everyone! I started writing this for fun and never really expected it to have any readership. Now it's passed 10,000 hits and 100 subscriptions and bookmarks - not to mention all your comments, of which I read, and deeply appreciate, every single one. I wish I could give kudos back to all of you.
> 
> So, here's Touching the Sky. After this is just Kindred Judgement and a short epilogue, which I'll post together. We are, unfortunately, nearing the end.
> 
> But good news! I've now officially marked this work as Part 1 of a new series, currently called Dark Skies and Dragonfire, so if you're interested you can bookmark or subscribe to that and get updated as soon as I post Chapter 1 of Part 2. I already know where I'm going with the series, but I want to spend just a little time developing all the plot arcs before I start writing in earnest. So the new story will be up not very long after I post the last chapter of this one.

Serana could ill contain her growing excitement, or her deepening dread. At long last she was close to finding Auriel’s Bow; at long last her thousand-year family nightmare was ending. The moment of crisis was upon her, and she relished it.

Or, rather, it was upon _them._ She glanced aside to Alexien, running beside her through the mountains of the Reach. He was not, she admitted, quite what she had imagined, when she was younger and had fantasized about some hero of legend riding in to save her. But she was glad it was him. Already it was easy to picture him wielding Auriel’s Bow, terrible and glorious, with his face set in deliberate fury as he tore through her father’s defenses.

And they would be at each other’s side, and they would do it all together. It was so much better than she had dreamed.

And yet – still she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, that she had missed some piece of the puzzle, that her father would be too powerful for them after all. Were they actually playing right into his hands? They were all but fetching the Bow for him; if they failed, if somehow they lost, he would have everything he needed to shroud the world in darkness forever.

In trying to stop the Prophecy, were they actually fulfilling it?

No; she pushed that thought away. It didn’t help. All they could do was give it their best effort… and hope they weren’t thereby dooming the world.

And if the worse did come to the worst, well, they were both vampires; they could still find some way to survive together, and do all they could to –

No, that possibility didn’t bear thinking about. Better to focus on _stopping_ that future from coming about to begin with.

Because Serana knew that, if that future ever came, neither of them would be alive to see it. Alexien would die first. And she wouldn’t be far behind him.

* * *

Alexien spent most of the next night recovering from his use of the dragon-speech. Whenever he spoke his voice was hoarse, and he made it clear by gesture that talking was painful. But every time Serana asked, he only said that he had overdone it, and would be fine soon; that they should focus on reaching their destination in time.

Unfortunately, he knew little enough detail about where they were going.

“There’s a cave in the western Reach,” he said again, once his voice had recovered. “If we go there, we’ll find Auriel’s Bow. That’s all Hermaeus Mora gave me.”

“No offense to your new best friend,” said Serana, “but I don’t find it very likely that we’ll find the weapon of a literal god just lying around on the floor of a cave.”

“Nor do I. But that’s all I know. He fulfills his bargains, technically; but he seems to have shared the least amount of information he possibly could while still being helpful. There’s a cave; if we go to the cave, we’ll find the Bow.”

“Based on that wording, he could have just given you the location of some random meaningless cave, and maybe you won’t find the Bow for another hundred years.”

“No, they’re connected,” said Alexien. “He didn’t use words, just images, but on this point at least the images are vivid.” He stopped for a moment and looked around, then pointed. “It’s just on the other side of that ridge. Don’t ask how I know, I just know.”

Serana felt another stab of nervous excitement. “Lead on, then.”

The mountains of the Reach were not kind to travelers, not even the supernaturally sure-footed. They had a hard scramble up a rocky slope, then an equally precarious descent down the other side. Alexien at least managed, where he would have fallen a dozen times as a human; but Serana made it look like a dance. She would leap nimbly from one stone to another, then give an elegant little pirouette and turn to watch him. He scowled at her, and she smiled innocently.

It took about an hour, then Alexien suddenly took a hard right turn down a narrow fissure in the rock, where they could only walk single-file. They came to a cavern’s entrance and stopped.

Alexien frowned and wrinkled his nose. “What’s that awful smell?”

“Yeah, I told you,” said Serana. He turned to look at her, and she explained: “Falmer blood. Not very close, or it would be stronger. But they’re around.”

“Illusion, then?”

“Not yet. They’ll have a hard enough time detecting two vampires as it is. Let’s just keep our voices low and step carefully, and save the Illusion until it’s necessary.”

Alexien nodded, then gave her a formal bow. “After you.”

Serana led the way through the cave. She could just hear Alexien’s footsteps behind her. The passage was narrow and dark, even to her eyes; the air was heavy. After only a few steps into the cavern it felt strangely like she had left Skyrim far behind.

They heard the sound of rushing water, and came to a chasm. Far below, a swift-flowing underground river disappeared under the rock. Across the chasm stretched a bridge of timber and rope; the scent of wood-rot was thick in the air.

“There’s no way that’ll support us,” said Alexien.

Serana shrugged. She took a few steps back, got a running start, and leapt. She flipped once in the air – just because she knew she could, and that it would annoy Alexien – and landed lightly on the balls of her feet on the far side of the chasm.

“What were you saying?”

Alexien grumbled something she couldn’t hear, then stepped back a few paces. He gauged the distance, sighed heavily, ran, and leapt after her.

As soon as his feet left the ground, Serana saw he wouldn’t make it. He jumped higher and further than any human could have managed, even if they were a master athlete or acrobat; but he still wasn’t used to being a vampire. His foot struck the very edge of the chasm, the rock crumbled, and he fell backwards. After a second Serana heard him splash into the river below.

Without thinking she dove in after him.

Before she hit the water, she had a moment to consider just how unwise that was. Then she was under, and the current, faster than she had expected, carried her away.

It was scarce comfort to know she couldn’t drown. She had dived in head-first, but the water tumbled her end over end, and she lost track of which way was up. Then the river disappeared under rock, and she was in pitch blackness, still being twisted and rolled over and around. She scraped her head on a rock, and the current slammed her shoulder into a wall with surprising force, then whirled her around again. She couldn’t see Alexien; she tried to feel for his aura, but the rush of water, the shifting and shifting again of direction, was too disorienting, and all she could do was let herself be swept away.

Suddenly Serana felt herself being thrown up onto a rocky shore, cold air on her face. She struggled to her feet, pushed the wet hair out of her eyes, and looked around.

Alexien stood a few feet away, reflexively gasping at the air. He was soaked to the bone; his hair was plastered to his face. He had managed to keep hold of his staff, because of course he had.

“Sorry about that,” said Serana. She tried to smile. “I keep forgetting, I have to make allowances for you being weaker and clumsier than me.”

He shot her a glare – then burst out laughing. “You look ridiculous,” he said.

Serana swept her hair back out of her face again, and started to reply – when a voice spoke from close at hand: “I welcome you both, in the name of the god.”

She spun around; beside her Alexien raised a hand crackling with electricity. A short distance away stood a figure they had not known was there; he was white-skinned – truly snow-white, paler than both Serana and Alexien – and white-haired, and armored in some white metal. Serana realized suddenly that he had no smell. She inched her head to the left and the right to see him from different angles, and couldn't satisfy herself whether or not he was corporeal.

“You will not need your weapons or your magic,” he said.

“Who are you?” Serana demanded.

“He’s a Falmer,” said Alexien; but his voice was uncertain.

A flash of annoyance. “Yes. But I choose to call myself a Snow Elf, in this era when your people know as Falmer only those twisted victims of the Deep Ones. As for who I am – my name is Gelebor, Knight-Paladin of the Chantry of Auriel. It is my task to guide those who come here seeking the light of the god, and to keep out those who bring with them evil in their hearts.”

“And what if we’re both?” said Serana.

“Then I bid you welcome; for you need the grace of Auriel most of all.”

“I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves,” said Alexien. He still hadn’t lowered his hand. “What’s the Chantry of Auriel?”

“Many ages ago it was the center of our culture and our religion. Pilgrims traveled here from all Tamriel to worship that deity to whom we gave the name Auriel, and who is known to your people as Akatosh – the lord of the divine pantheon. To you he is chiefly the God of Time; but it was the Sun that we honored as the visible expression of his glory.”

“The center of your culture and your religion,” Serana repeated. Her eyes flicked around the dank cavern.

“This cave is of course only the entrance, the first of many wayshrines along the pilgrim’s path,” Gelebor explained patiently. “The darkness is symbolic of spiritual unenlightenment, out of which those who seek the god will emerge into his light.”

“That’s common enough in initiation rituals,” said Alexien; he had relaxed, and Serana recognized his academic tone. “All over Tamriel there are religious traditions where celebrants make a symbolic progression of one kind or another: from darkness to light, or from underground to a high tower, or –”

“There may be many now,” Gelebor interrupted, “but my people were the first, and those others were inspired by this, the first and greatest of Auriel’s temples.”

Serana jabbed Alexien with an elbow. “No offense,” she told Gelebor, “but we’re not here for a lesson on your religion. We’re here –”

“I know why you are here,” he answered. His voice turned sad. “Only one reason now brings travelers to the Chantry. Like many before you, you seek Auriel’s Bow.”

“You know of it?”

“Of course. The Bow is the reason why the Chantry was built in this place. It is the manifestation of the divine power of the god; to bask in its glory, to look upon the tangible splendor of the Lord of Light, was the goal of pilgrims. But alas,” he said, shaking his head, “we knew, even far back in the beginning of what is now called the First Era, that there are many who would seek the power of the Bow for their own selfish ends. Thus we founded the Chantry, my brother and I, with a dual purpose: to encourage the piety of the faithful, and to protect the Bow from those who would twist it to evil.”

“You and your brother? You’re… quite old, then,” said Alexien.

Gelebor smiled sadly, and did not answer.

“What else can you tell us about Auriel’s Bow?” asked Serana.

“It is not truly a bow, though it usually takes that form,” said Gelebor. “Again, it is a manifestation of the power of Auriel: it draws energy from Aetherius itself, channeled through the sun. To the servants of darkness and evil, and all who fear fire, it is especially deadly. Its full potential I do not know, not any other living being – perhaps none since Auriel himself wielded it in the Dawn Age, on that day when the Aedra broke the ranks of their enemy, and Nirn was remade. But it is mighty for good, and mighty too for evil, in the wrong hands.”

“We need the Bow, but not for evil,” she said. “In fact, we’re going to use it to _prevent_ evil – if you consider putting out the sun to be evil, which I do. Will you give it to us?”

“I cannot give it to you – but if what you say is true, yes, you will be able to take up the Bow. It is protected by Auriel’s own radiance, and he will not keep from you that which you need for so righteous a purpose.”

He paused. After a moment Alexien asked: “Then what’s the catch?”

Gelebor nodded in approval. “The god is no longer the only one who keeps watch over the Bow. There is also my brother, Vyrthur, the Arch-Curate. He has… lost his way, and serves now another.”

“What other?”

“One that has long opposed Auriel, and been opposed by him. You will see, when you meet Vyrthur. It pains me to say this… but you must kill him, if you would take the Bow.”

“You want us to kill your brother?” Serana asked in surprise.

“No. No, I do not. But it must be done. I love my brother – but I serve the god; and Vyrthur has turned his back on the light of Auriel. He may yet work great evil in the world, if ever he leaves this place.”

“He’s trapped here?”

“Say rather that he is in stalemate. Two great powers are in equipoise around him; if you attempt to take the Bow, the balance will be broken, one way or another.” He gave Serana a serious look. “You can still turn back. But if you proceed on, _you must not fail._ Do you understand?”

“You’re putting a lot of faith in us,” said Serana. “Considering that Auriel is the god of the sun, and we, if you have not noticed, are vampires. How do you know we’re not here to misuse or taint the Bow after all?”

“I know what you are, and I know why you are here. Indeed, I may perhaps know better than you yourselves. Who can fathom the ways of the gods? It may be that the hand of Auriel himself has guided you here.”

“He has a sick sense of humor, then,” Serana muttered. “But my point stands: Sun. Vampires. How do we know that trying to take the Bow won’t destroy us?”

“Auriel rejects none who seek him: his light, like the light of the sun, is freely available to all. If your intentions are but pure, touching the Bow will not hurt you.”

“But we’re not ordinary vampires,” Serana insisted. “I’m a Daughter of Coldharbour, and my friend here is only one step away. And we were both turned _willingly_. Somehow I don’t think one of the Aedra will look kindly on that.”

“What you _have been_ is irrelevant; what matters is what you _will do_. That is why the pilgrim’s path leads from darkness into light.”

Serana rolled her eyes. “It’s great that your religion is so very forgiving and all,” she said, “but even if I believed in fluff like that, I want to emphasize again that _I’m a Daughter of Coldharbour_. That means I was turned by Molag Bal himself – the Lord of Lies, the Defiler, He-Who-Corrupts-the-Innocent. What if we accidentally _corrupt_ the Bow? That’s exactly our enemy’s plan, after all.”

“Your enemy may seek to use you to corrupt the Bow – but is that what _you_ seek? I say again, if your intentions are but pure, you can use Auriel’s Bow with safety.” He gave Serana another serious look. “But also I say again that if you attempt this, _you must not fail_ – and also I ask you again, _do you understand?_ ”

Serana bit her lip. “I understand,” she said.

“Good,” said Gelebor. “Then I will show you the way.”

He turned and raised his arms, palms up in supplication. Some kind of power gathered around him – not magic as Serana knew it, but something similar, except it seared the edges of her senses if she looked at it directly. There was a flash of white light, and before them appeared a pavilion of marble, with a silver basin in the middle.

“Incredible,” Alexien whispered.

“Come forward, and do not be afraid,” Gelebor told them.

He made a gesture over Serana – some kind of blessing, doubtless – and handed her a silver pitcher. She blinked.

“This is the first of six wayshrines,” said Gelebor, “and the seventh is in the Inner Sanctum itself. Pilgrims would meditate at each; and after they had completed their prayers, they would dip a ceremonial ewer into the basin of water, and so proceed to the next wayshrine.”

“So we repeatedly fill a pitcher with water and carry it around,” said Serana. She hefted the silver in her hand. “Marvelous. I suppose it _has_ to be silver?”

“I’m afraid so,” he said.

“And what’s the point of this ceremony?”

“The initiates would take their full ewers to the Inner Sanctum of the Chantry, and there pour out the water into a sacred basin, allowing them entry.”

“All that work gathering this holy water just to dump it out? That makes no sense.”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” said Gelebor, in some annoyance. “It is symbolic, and heavy with meaning for the faithful. You are not of the faithful – but still you seek the favor of the god, and so I would advise you to observe the ritual proprieties.”

Serana sighed. “Yeah, okay.”

“I wish you all fortune.” Gelebor made that gesture again over Serana, then over Alexien. “May the light of Auriel guide your steps, and illuminate your darkest hour.”

He stepped back out of the way, and Serana walked up to the marble pavilion. Alexien followed her tentatively, a few steps behind. She dipped the pitcher into the basin, and at once the way opened before her. She didn’t know how else to describe it: there was none of the swirl of energy she associated with a portal, no visible edge of any magical door; she simply knew that if she took a step, she would be elsewhere.

She stepped away from the basin.

And then it was dark. The marble pavilion was gone, the faint background noise of the river had fallen silent. Gelebor was no longer there. A moment later Alexien was at her side, looking as disoriented as she felt.

“Well, that was weird,” she told him.

He nodded. “A Falmer from the time before they were Falmer. I have no idea how he’s still alive.”

“I’m not sure he is, though.”

“He’s real enough to do whatever kind of bizarre holy magic that was,” said Alexien. “Did you feel that, when he blessed us?”

“What? I didn’t feel anything,” she said, surprised.

“Really? That’s… curious.”

Serana looked ahead. “Anyway, we have more pressing problems. Namely the whole host of Falmer I can smell near here. And I doubt they’ll be anything like as chatty as our new friend.”

Alexien sniffed the air. “Well, last time we tried to sneak by an army of Falmer, it _almost_ worked. Care to try again?”

For answer Serana waved an arm, and cloaked herself in spells of shadow and silence. Alexien mimicked her – then blinked. He tapped his heel on the ground and frowned.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“It just… doesn’t seem to have worked.”

“Supernatural senses now, remember? I assure you, you’re all but undetectable to anything except another vampire.”

“Or a chaurus, judging by last time.”

Serana gave him a pointed stare.

“What?”

“Chauruses see heat,” she said, “right?”

“Yes?”

She continued staring.

“Oh,” he said, embarrassed, “that’s right, I… don’t have body heat anymore. I forgot.”

Serana snorted, and motioned for him to follow her.

She led the way through a maze of passages, and somehow she always knew which way to take; but whether they were going up or down, she could not tell. The stench of the Falmer only grew stronger. It reminded her uncomfortably of Blackreach.

They ran into the first Falmer by accident: it was coming down the same narrow passage towards them, and there was no room to go around or over it. Alexien raised a hand to kill it before it knew they were there, but Serana shook her head. Too noisy. She approached carefully; it had stopped, and seemed to be looking around with its blind face.

She had never done this without eye contact before. Well, there was a first time for everything. Unfortunately. Seeing what was inside a Falmer’s head was not particularly appealing, but it was the fastest way forward. Serana stopped an arm’s length away from the thing, reached out with her magic, and invaded its mind.

Loss, and rage because it could no longer remember what was lost: there was nothing to its thoughts but betrayal. It had felt sorrow, once, but had forgotten why; and it mourned for that sorrow as much as it had once mourned for whatever had come before. All it knew was a choking black fury, an anger at the baseness and ingratitude of the world; but even that anger had grown cold, like the smoking embers of a dead fire. It would kill, certainly – but only because it knew not what else to do.

But… there was something else hidden at the back of its mind: an alien presence, a secret voice that whispered to it promises of revenge. And Serana knew that she was not the first vampire to try to enthrall this pitiful creature.

She broke the grip of that presence, and it melted away. The Falmer was hers. Her mind felt greasy. She didn’t know what to do with it, so she just commanded it to sit back against the wall and let them by. She stepped over it carefully, and motioned again for Alexien to follow. Its ears twitched once as they passed, almost like a cat’s, but otherwise it did not move.

“I’ve… never seen you do that before,” Alexien whispered.

 _And I hope you never will again_ , Serana thought – but there was no point in saying it out loud. They walked on in silence.

There were more Falmer: an entire cavern full of them. Serana paid them no heed. There might have been chauruses as well – she thought she heard that strange chittering sound they made – but she kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, and did not look. She threaded her way through the Falmer and around them, under stone archways and over bridges of chitin, until at last she felt a draft of cold air on her face. It was crisp and clean, and smelled of ice.

Serana stepped out into the clear air, and took a deep, contented breath. Bright though it was, she didn’t even mind the sun.

It _was_ bright, however, and she had to raise a hand to shade her eyes. Even so it took a moment to adjust to the light so that she could see where they were. Then suddenly her lips parted, and she gave a little sound of surprise.

They stood in the middle of a glacial valley, halfway up a steep cliff. Everything that was not ice was hidden in snow, in deep drifts of white that should have blinded her with reflected sunlight, but for some reason did not. For the landscape had none of the cold cruelty of Skyrim’s winters: there was a freshness on the air like a warm spring breeze, with a scent that reminded her of jasmine. Far below there was a gentle river of snowmelt, shaded by green trees Serana did not recognize; and she knew somehow that its water would be soothing and mild.

“Gods, Serana,” Alexien said beside her. “It’s… it’s so beautiful. I’m so glad we could see this together.”

She took his hand, without looking away. “Thank you, Alexien – for being here with me, for this.”

They let themselves look a while longer, and tried to fix the scene in memory. Then Serana sighed, raised her hood, and motioned for Alexien to follow her down into the valley.

* * *

They strode through the valley with light hearts, as if the place had some magic of peace and forgetfulness. It seemed that no evil or memory of evil had strength there, where ice did not freeze and the sun did not burn. They looked for the next wayshrine, and talked and laughed all the while. Serana even sang once, her voice high and clear in the bright air. It was an old song, a song of sorrow and of loss; but in that place even old sorrow was a source of joy, and the recollection of loss was solace.

They found the rest of the wayshrines; at each one Serana filled the silver pitcher, and a ghostly priest blessed them in the name of Auriel. She couldn’t tell if she was imagining it, after Alexien had said he’d felt something when Gelebor made that gesture over them; but she thought she could sense some strange power settling around her, growing stronger each time the blessing was repeated.

Finally they passed the final wayshrine but one, and from there they could see a massive stone structure rising up in the distance: the Inner Sanctum of the Chantry. They approached it, and the weight of their task began to press down upon them again.

A narrow bridge led to a gate of iron, set into a many-arched wall that rose high above them. A statue of the god himself waited in front of the gate. Serana did not want to look at it, but Alexien stared long at its face, brow furrowed. He shook his head and pointed at a silver basin at the statue’s feet. Serana emptied the water into it, and at once the gate opened.

Alexien cursed and fell into a fighting stance, lightning crackling around his hands.

“They’re… frozen,” said Serana.

Several Falmer stood encased in ice just inside the gate. They seemed to be running away from something – one stretched its hand out as if to open the door, and blind terror was visible on its features. Serana felt an aura of magic still twining around them.

“So Vyrthur is a mage,” she said. “And a powerful one.” She bent closer to examine one of the Falmer.

“Don’t touch them,” said Alexien hastily. “They’re still alive, just dormant.”

Serana rolled her eyes, gave him an _I know_ look, and stepped through the gate.

There were more Falmer inside, at least a dozen in the main atrium. They were all frozen. In the corner there was even an iced-over chaurus, black pincers spread wide, ready to bite. Serana kept as far from it as possible as she threaded a way through the chamber. They found a stairwell, gave each other a serious nod, and began to climb.

The stairs exited onto what looked like a mix of throne room and chapel, a long, narrow hall lined with icy columns. At the far end, in a grand chair, sat a figure that could only be Gelebor’s brother: the same white armor, the same truly white skin and white hair.

Vyrthur sat slouched to one side in a posture of boredom. But as soon as he saw Serana, he straightened in his seat, and a wicked grin spread across his face.

“Yes!” he cried. “Yes, at last! At last you’re here!”

Serana blinked. She walked to the left, and Alexien fanned out to her right, both keeping their eyes fixed on Vyrthur. But he never even looked at Alexien.

“I’ve waited longer than you can imagine,” Vyrthur was saying. Even from across the room Serana could see the amber glow in his eyes: vampire.

“What have you been waiting for?” she asked.

“For you, of course,” he said in surprise. Suddenly he seemed to remember something and rose to his feet, and gave a deep bow. “I welcome you, Daughter of Coldharbour, in the name of our master. Come, and take that which has been reserved for you from the foundation of the world.”

She glanced at Alexien. He bore a troubled look, but shook his head. She turned back to Vyrthur.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

Vyrthur’s grin faltered; his voice turned almost pleading. “You… you know of the Prophecy, surely? Surely that is why you have come?”

“I know of the Prophecy,” Serana said cautiously. “What do _you_ know about it?”

“I wrote it, of course!”

Alexien forgot himself: “You _wrote_ it?”

Vyrthur’s eyes tracked once to Alexien, before returning to Serana. It was clear that this interview was not going as he had expected. Desperation was on his face – and below that, a slowly building fury. “Yes. The Prophecy is mine; it was I who wrote it into the Elder Scrolls. At least, I intended to do so – but when I opened the Scrolls to set it down, I found the Prophecy already inscribed there, in my own words that I had never written.”

Serana and Alexien were advancing slowly up either aisle, one to the left and one to the right. But at those words Serana stopped.

“You did this,” she said, in a low voice. “My father, my mother, me – you’re the one who did this to us.”

“And would again, Daughter of Coldharbour. It was necessary.”

“My name,” she said through gritted teeth, “is _Serana._ ”

“Irrelevant,” said Vyrthur. “You are a Daughter of Coldharbour, a bearer of the power of the Dark Lord himself, touched by his own being. Whatever else you were matters nothing: that is what you _are_.”

Alexien kept up a slow advance. “Why do you care what Serana is?”

Vyrthur licked his lips. “You… you are not here to claim the Bow, are you?”

“We certainly are,” said Serana.

A look of relief. “And to blind the sun?”

“No,” she said. She took a step forwards. “No, we’re here to stop that.”

“But…” he looked confused; but under the confusion was still that growing fury. “But I do not understand. The Prophecy was clear. You would come – so long I have waited for you to come! – and then… no! No, my words, twisted by the enemy!”

“Maybe you should explain from the beginning,” said Serana.

“Yes. Yes, you are right: perhaps if I tell you everything, if I make you understand…” He nodded to himself. “You know, I assume, what this place is?”

“The Chantry of Auriel –”

“ _Speak not that name!_ ” Suddenly his composure was gone altogether, and a look of deepest hate was on his face.

“Okay then,” said Serana, with a raised eyebrow. “In that case, this was an Aedric temple, and you were the Arch-Curate.”

“Yes,” said Vyrthur, pulling himself together. “Yes. In those days I was lost, and served the Lord of Light. But then he turned his back on me! And _he_ came to me, and showed me the error of my ways, a better path; and he showed me how I might prepare my vengeance.”

“You became a vampire, you mean?”

“The Dark Lord sent his servants into the Chantry. They were all destroyed, when they tried to take the Bow” – Alexien straightened, but Vyrthur did not notice – “but not before one of them bestowed on me the Gift. And I was alone. No sooner had I opened my eyes again, than I felt the light of my former master leave me. And I swore to avenge myself upon him.”

“You want to take revenge... on a god.”

“He showed me how it might be done,” Vyrthur went on. “He spoke to me in my dreams, and explained it all. One of the Aedra is beyond my reach – but I could still strike at their influence in Mundus, could still destroy that for which they long labored, long suffered. I could put out the sun, and lay in ruin everything they have built. And all that I needed, I already had.”

“The Bow.”

“But I could not take it,” said Vyrthur, and his voice turned pleading again. “I tried; but the agony I felt, you cannot imagine. It burned my very soul; it searched out the most hidden corners of my mind, and set them aflame. I could not take the Bow; I was not strong enough, and I could not take it.”

“Thus the Prophecy,” said Alexien.

“Yes. I could not take the Bow, nor break the spells of protection woven round it – but a Daughter of Coldharbour could! Yet I could not leave to find one. I had to bring one here. Thus it was prophesied, by me but before me, that one day there would come a Daughter of Coldharbour, to claim the Bow, and taint it, and use it.” His eyes lay heavy upon Serana. “And now you are here – at long last, you are here – but… that is not why you have come, is it?”

Serana ignored the question. “And what about Harkon?”

A look of confusion. “Harkon? I know none by that name.”

“My father,” said Serana, again through gritted teeth.

Vyrthur gave a hollow laugh. “All that mattered was getting _you_ here, so that the Bow might be corrupted by _your_ hand. I know nothing of any other. Perhaps our master has held him in reserve against the possibility of my failure, or your… intransigence.”

Serana’s fists were clenched so hard she drew blood. She wanted to reply but could not speak. Everything her family had been through, all those years of obsession and loneliness, all the betrayals and all the heartbreak – to Vyrthur it didn’t even matter. It was just collateral damage, incidental and unimportant.

“Then here she is,” she heard Alexien saying. “At long last, as you say, a Daughter of Coldharbour has come. Let her take the Bow, and then we’ll be on our way.”

 _No_ , Serana thought, _don’t let him off that easy, not by a trick_ …

Vyrthur looked from Serana to Alexien, and back. He licked his lips again. “No,” he finally said. “No, you cannot deceive me. You are not here to use the Bow against the sun. You have not come to fulfill my Prophecy, but to break it.” Suddenly his eyes glowed, and he gathered power. “I will not let you! I have waited too long for my vengeance to fail now, so close to the end!”

The ground shook, and Serana’s heart exulted. She saw Alexien raising his arms and casting wards, but she didn’t even want to bother with magic. She wanted to tear Vyrthur’s limbs off by main strength. She wanted to feel his bones break beneath her fingers.

“I needed a Daughter of Coldharbour – and one has come!” Vyrthur all but screamed with mad joy. “She was meant to take the Bow herself – but no matter. Her death and her blood will serve just as well, to tear down the defenses of the god, to taint the essence of the Bow. Then it will be _mine_!”

On the last word he swept out an arm. For a moment it seemed nothing had happened, and Serana grinned and started to move towards him. But then she heard footsteps running up the stairs behind them.

And then there were Falmer in the room with them, rushing up the stairs, leaping down from somewhere above. Plates of ice still clung to armor or weapons. All bore looks of hate, and on all Serana sensed the psychic stain of Vyrthur’s influence.

Alexien threw lightning and blasted several off their feet, but Serana leapt upon them with bare hands and claws. She wrenched their arms out of joint and twisted their necks to breaking, she rained down blows that shattered skulls and snapped ribs, she slashed through armor and tore open throats; and with every strike she pictured Vyrthur’s face.

The chaurus was loose – she was only dimly aware of it – and Alexien was battering it to pieces with thunder and ice, and shouting something to her.

“Get Vyrthur!” she finally realized he was saying.

_Gladly._

She saw the chaurus fall, saw Alexien hurl a wave of Falmer back with pure kinetic force, saw his sword come out and flash in the cold, refracted light – and she turned her back.

Vyrthur was watching with satisfaction, but it turned to alarm when Serana faced him.

“You wanted me,” she said in a low voice. She raised a hand over her head and conjured fire. It hurt, and she embraced that pain, fed it into her anger. “Here I am!”

She threw the firebolt. Vyrthur flicked a wrist, and the flame struck a barrier of blood-red energy around him and vanished away.

Then Serana was there, and she struck him in the temple with the heel of her hand. Vyrthur’s head snapped around. But he was fast – as fast as her, if not faster – and moved with the force of the blow, and as he spun around he kicked out at Serana’s knee.

Pain shot through her, but she caught herself from falling. Vyrthur thrust forward a hand glowing with that crimson aura; Serana cast a ward and deflected the blow, but he struck again with the other hand – he _was_ faster than her – and hit her in the stomach.

Suddenly she was on her back, and Vyrthur had a dagger in his hand, swooping down at her face like a bird of prey. She caught his arm and twisted aside, and the blade gouged a hole in the stone floor. Vyrthur screamed in frustration.

Then there was a rush of energy, and Vyrthur was knocked backwards. Serana scrambled to her feet and raised a shield.

Suddenly she realized it had gone quiet. She glanced behind her at Alexien.

The Falmer were all dead; corpses blasted and mangled lay scattered behind him, as he strode forward, right hand pointed at Vyrthur. The look in his eyes – it was the same he’d had when he faced the dragon. She looked away.

“You dare…!” Vyrthur stammered.

Lightning arced. It struck Vyrthur’s barrier and he was unharmed, but startled.

“You’ve said enough,” said Alexien, in a voice cold with fury. “All I expect you to do now is die.”

“And do you think you are strong enough to make it happen, neophyte?” Vyrthur spat. “Do you think that even the two of you together are strong enough?”

They both threw lightning at once. There was a crack of thunder, deafening in that enclosed space, and a blinding flash. Serana had to turn her head away. When she looked again, Vyrthur still stood, hand outstretched, a barrier of that crimson energy swirling around him. He was grinning.

“Pathetic little mages – children of a recent age, playing with the forces of creation! You cannot even imagine what the power of true magic was like, at the dawn of this world when my people ruled. Plead for mercy now, and –”

Alexien snarled, raised a hand – and drew Dawnbreaker.

Its light was like fire, and it sent a wave of pain through Serana. She saw even Alexien grimace and grit his teeth.

But Vyrthur – for the first time, his face showed real fear.

That fear was adrenaline, and Serana leapt at him. He blocked a firebolt she threw, then made a grand sweeping gesture, and she was hurled back by unseen force.

But Alexien reached him. Dawnbreaker’s burning white struck crimson-red. A sound like a thousand screams erupted in Serana’s head, and she covered her face.

When she looked again, black blood dripped from a smoking wound in Vyrthur’s shoulder. Alexien raised Dawnbreaker to strike again.

“No!” Vyrthur screamed. He threw out his arms to either side. The ground shook so hard that Alexien lost his balance and stumbled backwards. Stone columns cracked and fell. Pieces of the ceiling far overhead broke and came crashing down.

“No!” Vyrthur screamed again. There was another surge of power. The walls of the chapel exploded outwards and sunlight streamed in, sudden and dazzling.

“NO!” Vyrthur screamed a third time; and his face was terrible to behold. Light warped and bent around him, and the very sky seemed to tremble. Shattered masonry that had been wall and ceiling hung in mid-air, then shot back in as if fired from a crossbow.

Serana rushed Vyrthur, but the stone raining down was too dense; she dodged the capital of a column, deflected a hailstorm of rubble, dodged again. But she timed it wrong, and she saw too late that she had leapt right into the path of a huge slab of stone.

A wave of force pushed the stone away from her, and she turned in time to see Alexien. He had held a barrier – rubble and stonework lay piled in a neat circle around him – but he’d had to drop it to deflect the masonry away from Serana. Even as she watched, a fragment struck him on the head; he looked surprised, just for a moment, and fell.

Serana ran and stood over him, and blocked what she could of the falling stone. Something hit her shoulder and she felt blood run down her chest, but she didn’t look. Surely there couldn’t be much more of this, it couldn’t last much longer…

And then it was over. The chapel stood in the open air, and the ceiling and walls now lay scattered around them. She looked down for Alexien.

Black blood curtained down one side of his face, but he was alive, and awake. He had managed to keep his grip on Dawnbreaker, and was struggling to rise to a knee.

“Come on,” said Serana, her voice shaking. “We can do this. I know we can.”

Alexien clenched his jaw, and stood up. He started to cast a spell, but swayed dizzily and put a hand to his head. “Serana, I’m not sure how much help I’m…”

“Shush,” she said, but her heart fell. “Stay behind me. You’ve done enough; I can take it from here.”

He exhaled sharply, and nodded. “I’ll do what I can, but…”

“Shush,” she said again. “Really, I just wanted to make sure you were awake so I’d have an audience to show off for.”

He flashed her a smile, and looked for Vyrthur. Serana followed his gaze.

Vyrthur had retreated out of the bombardment onto a large balcony overlooking the valley below. Alarm flashed across his face when he saw them both rise; but then Serana stepped forward to face him alone, and he smirked.

He started to say something, but she didn’t give him the chance: she thrust out a hand and hurled lightning. Vyrthur flicked a wrist again to cast that crimson barrier – and nothing happened. Serana could see the surprise in his eyes before her thunderbolt took him in the chest.

She made a mental note never to piss off Meridia, and charged.

Vyrthur recovered, and threw some kind of energy blast at her; she deflected it, called on her fury once more, and cast fire. She didn’t wait to see whether Vyrthur could block it or not before she did it again, and kept rushing forwards.

He raised both arms high above his head, and the ground shook; but then Serana reached him, and she struck him in the face with all her strength and the full weight of her body behind the blow. He rounded on her in a rage – and they locked eyes.

Serana felt the raw power of his will surging against hers, pushing against her like the weight of a mountain. But she pushed back. For a terrible moment they were equally matched, and her whole soul felt the strain of that pressure; then Vyrthur’s will faltered and gave way, just the slightest of steps. It was enough. Serana redoubled her effort, and he broke.

His eyes blinked, just once, and then Serana’s hands were around his throat. She lifted him off the ground.

“You’ve waited all this time to meet me,” she said, as her grip tightened. She held him over the edge of the balcony. “ _Here I am, Vyrthur_. Is it everything you dreamed it would be?”

“Wait,” he croaked. “Wait, Daughter of –”

“My name,” she snarled, “is Serana.”

And once more she called up fire. The pain was almost unbearable, but pure and right. She set Vyrthur aflame, and with a wordless cry flung him over the edge. He screamed. She made sure to watch him fall all the way down.

“Serana?” Alexien said from behind her. She turned to look at him.

“I’m okay,” she told him. “Are you?”

He nodded.

“Then…” Serana couldn’t think; suddenly she felt tired and empty. “What now?”

“Now… I assume we go there,” said Alexien. He pointed towards another marble pavilion Serana had not noticed; it looked much like the wayshrines, but grander. Waves of some bright power flowed out from it.

“Right,” she said. “Auriel’s Bow.” _The reason we’re here._

They approached the pavilion. One of the walls shimmered, and a doorway opened before them. The shrine was empty, except for a single pedestal in the middle, above which floated the Bow of Auriel.

It was ghostly, almost transparent, but somehow more real than if it had appeared solid. Its color was all of gold, tooled with intricate designs of vines and sunbeams. Onto it was inscribed text in some flowing script; neither could read it, but somehow the very shape of the words filled them with solace.

They stood a long time, and admired.

“Well?” Serana said finally.

Alexien just raised an eyebrow at her.

“Take the Bow, so we can get out of here.”

“I was never going to take it,” he said. And he stepped back, and gestured for her to proceed.

“But… no,” Serana stammered. “What?”

“Auriel’s Bow is yours,” said Alexien. “It was always meant to be yours. This is your quest, remember? I’m just helping out.”

“But I’m… you’re the Dragonborn,” she said. “You’re the hero.”

“We’re both heroes, or neither of us is. Come on, Serana, you know it makes more sense this way. You’ve been on this path for a thousand years, even if you didn’t realize it at the time. That path has always been leading you here. Even Vyrthur knew it. His own Prophecy backfired on him, but he was right: you were always the one meant to wield Auriel’s Bow.” When Serana didn’t answer, Alexien went on: “Besides, I already have a divine weapon.”

Serana’s eyes flicked to Dawnbreaker on his back, and she shuddered. She looked towards the bow.

“Or don’t you agree?” Alexien asked.

“I’m just…” Serana hesitated. “I’m just not sure I should even touch it. Whatever Gelebor said.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a vampire?”

Alexien stared at her.

“Yes, all right, so are you – but you’re also Aedric, sort of. I’m not.”

“In that case, as the acting representative of the Aedra, I hereby give you permission to touch it.”

“...Will that work?”

“I’ll let you know here in about five minutes.”

“Be serious, Alexien,” she said. She thought back over everything Vyrthur had said, and felt suddenly… dirty. Unclean. “What if I somehow corrupt it? What if…” _What if Vyrthur and my father were right about me, and this stain on my soul rubs off on it?_

“I am being serious,” he insisted. “And if that happens, please avoid shooting any arrows at the sun. But I don’t think it works that way. Intentions matter, in this as in all magic.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Does that sound like something I’d do?”

Serana snorted. Then she took a deep breath, nodded to herself, and stepped forwards. She reached out for the Bow – but her fingers stopped just inches from it, and she turned back to Alexien. “Are you sure about this? Really sure?”

“Serana, shut up and take the damn manifestation of the power of the Sun-God. If he minded he’d have said something by now.”

And her hand grasped the Bow.

Its power rushed into her; a flood of memory threatened to carry her away. It did feel like the sun – but not the sun as she knew it now, as a vampire: it was warmth on a cold day, it was gentle light playing on summer flowers, it was the salvation of morning to a lonely child afraid of the dark. It was the sun as she had known it when she had still been human, the sun she had all but forgotten over centuries of night. That sensation filled her chest and spread out through her arms and legs, down to the very tips of her fingers; and Serana fell to her knees and wept.

Alexien’s hand was on her shoulder. She didn’t know how long they had been there. She rose to her feet, and realized the Bow had vanished.

No – it was there, still with her; it just wasn’t visible. She held her left arm out from her body and reached for that feeling of light and warmth, and Auriel’s Bow appeared again in her hand. She drew back the string to her ear, and an arrow of gold energy flared into life. She loosed it at a broken piece of masonry; the arrow flashed through the air, and where it struck it exploded in a blaze of sunlight, and burned and melted a hole through the stone.

A smile spread over Serana’s face, and for the first time in a very long time, she felt hope.


	25. Kindred Judgment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, the finale and then the epilogue! It look a little longer than I had hoped, with moving to a new house and all. Once again, thank you all so much for your your support! I can't believe how far this has come, and honestly wasn't sure when I started if I was ever going to finish this, and wouldn't have done without all your amazing comments.
> 
> Chapter 1 of Part 2 of this series is now up, so after reading this chapter and the epilogue, please go ahead and take a look at "Black Wings Unfurled." Many thanks!

Serana and Alexien spent the night before they arrived back in Solitude to meet the others training together.

Alexien still had trouble casting fire as a vampire, which, he pointed out, might be a problem when they faced off against an entire castle full of things vulnerable to fire. Serana was by no means an expert pyromancer and could normally conjure flame only when she was furious at something, but she showed him ways of using that anger to fuel the spell and overcome a vampire’s natural aversion. It took most of the night, but finally Alexien, frustrated and angry at himself, managed to cast a firebolt.

After that they spent some time practicing mental attack and defense. As a vampire Alexien was inherently stronger at this, but still he lacked Serana’s mastery. Only after great difficulty and several failures was he able to throw her back and put her on the defensive.

At that they switched again, and Alexien tried to teach Serana some Alteration. Valerica, to no one’s surprise, had never valued very highly any magic that was not immediately useful in either destroying one’s enemies or summoning something else to destroy one’s enemies, and had neglected this side of Serana’s education. They worked on the basics of telekinesis, and Alexien threw pebbles at Serana until she could catch them and throw them back without moving. She found it nearly as frustrating as Alexien had found pyromancy, but she tried and tried until she got it.

By then it was almost dawn of the day they were to meet everyone in Solitude, so they hastened the rest of the way to the city. The sun was just starting to rise above the horizon. They took refuge in the inn. In the morning it was all but empty, with only the innkeep and a single barmaid cleaning and setting things in order from the previous night’s revelry. Alexien ordered wine and five cups (rather optimistically, Serana thought), and they sat at a quiet table in the most isolated corner they could find, and waited.

Perhaps an hour passed, and Serana and Alexien were trying to distract themselves by talking lightly about books, when the door opened. Brelyna walked in. She lowered her hood and looked around the inn, saw them sitting in the corner, hesitated a moment, and walked over to their table.

“Gods you two are creepy,” said Brelyna, taking a chair. “The weird glowing-eye thing just freaks me out.”

They stared at her.

“Yeah, that, exactly that,” she said.

Alexien looked at Serana. “I think she’s jealous.”

“Nope,” said Brelyna.

“You know, I think you’re right,” said Serana.

“Still nope,” she said, her voice rising a few notes.

Alexien grinned, then passed Brelyna a cup of wine. She drank it without hesitation. “Regardless,” he said, “it’s good to see you. Did you have any trouble getting here?”

“Well, you may not know this, but not everyone in Skyrim feels very positively towards Dunmer.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure if they were proper bandits or just a bunch of racist Nords who saw a young elf-girl traveling alone and couldn’t pass up the opportunity, but I was attacked near Morthal.”

Serana motioned for her to go on. Brelyna shrugged and took another drink of wine. “They regretted it,” she said, and tried to sound nonchalant, as if it wasn’t a big deal and she wasn’t inordinately proud of herself.

Alexien started to make a joke but stopped himself. “Well done,” he said, and gave her a smile. “I’m glad you were able to join us, Brelyna.”

She nodded, cheeks faintly pink. “So, when do we leave?” she asked.

“We need to wait a while longer,” said Serana. “Alexien thought it would be a good idea to invite two of the Dawnguard to the party.”

“Vampire-hunters? Really?”

“Well… we’re hunting vampires,” said Alexien.

“That sentence could also be exactly one word shorter, though,” said Brelyna.

Serana snorted. “Maybe don’t say that part aloud in public.”

Alexien ignored her. “It won’t be an issue. They know the situation and volunteered to come.”

Brelyna gave him an uneasy look. But then they quickly talked of other things.

Time went by, and there was still no sign of Sorine or Brynhild. The inn began to see more activity as merchants and citizens came in for a mid-day meal and a drink. Alexien ordered more wine, and had to pay extra to keep the table. Serana bought food for Brelyna when she started casting envious eyes on the plates brought to other patrons.

The sun had started to set, and the shadows in the inn were stretching across the floor, when finally the door opened again. Sorine and Brynhild entered, looking travel-worn but hardy. They saw Alexien, nodded, and approached the table.

Alexien stood up. “Welcome,” he said with a bow. “Your journey went well?”

“Tolerably,” said Sorine.

“Allow me to introduce you to Brelyna Maryon, Wizard of the College of Winterhold, a dear friend. Brelyna, this is Sorine Jurard, whom you probably know as a Dwemer scholar, and Brynhild of Whiterun, formerly of the Vigilants of Stendarr.”

Sorine bowed formally; Brynhild gave a stiff nod. Brelyna smiled and started to say something, but the words died on her tongue.

“Please have a seat,” said Alexien, unperturbed. “We have wine, and Brelyna says that the roast venison is quite restorative after a day of travel.”

Brynhild glanced at the cup in Alexien’s hand. “I’d rather not,” she said.

Serana stiffened and looked up. No one met her eyes. “Well then, we might as well save a lot of time and effort and just cut our own throats right now,” she said. “Because that’s what we’ll be doing if we go face my father when we can’t even trust each other enough to share a drink.”

“That’s… fair,” said Sorine, shamefaced. She sat, followed a moment later by Brynhild. Alexien returned to his seat.

“Splendid,” he said, filling everyone’s cups. “It’s so nice that we can all get together like this.”

“What’s the plan?” asked Sorine. She accepted the wine, sniffed it, and took a careful sip.

“We can’t leave until morning anyway,” said Serana. “Alexien and I have had the day to rest, but the two of you, and Brelyna, have been traveling. Then we’ll go to Castle Volkihar and settle this.”

Sorine waved a hand. “I mean, what are the enemy’s forces? What’s the layout of the castle and its defenses? What magical traps or abilities do we have to watch for, and what are our team’s strengths?”

Alexien glanced at Serana. She nodded, and everyone leaned in closer. “Forces: unknown,” she started, in a low voice.

“Wait,” said Brynhild, holding up a hand. “How do we know he doesn’t have a spy here, listening to our plans?”

“We’d know,” said Alexien simply.

“You mean, you and Serana would.”

“And we’d tell you, so we all would.”

“Forces: unknown,” Serana repeated. “The entire court consists of little less than a hundred vampires, but only a fraction are in residence in the Castle at any time. Most are usually on mission in Skyrim. But in the worst-case scenario, if Harkon is planning a major attack, they may be gathering together.”

“How many thralls?” asked Sorine.

“Also unknown,” said Serana. “I never learned how many thralls – capable of combat, I mean, not just cattle – were kept there. But it doesn’t matter, because they could build up the number fairly quickly if they needed to.”

“You’d know,” Brynhild muttered.

“Yes, I would,” she answered coldly. “If you’re going to be fighting vampires, you might consider listening to what another vampire has to say.”

A moment’s silence. “Sorry,” said Brynhild. “Please continue.”

“Why bother?” interjected Sorine. “Unknown number of vampires, unknown number of thralls. We should expect heavy, possibly overwhelming resistance, but we won’t know until we’re there. Is there anything useful we _do_ know?”

“Answering your original questions in order,” Serana went on, “we know the layout of the Castle perfectly, because I lived there for several hundred years. I’ll draw you a map before the final assault. The main entrance is over a bridge, with an iron gate; it opens directly into the main hall, where most of the fighting will happen. Before you ask, yes, there’s a hidden way in, leading to the inner courtyard – but the passage from the courtyard to the main keep is blocked, and we’d draw attention clearing it. Ironically, we’ll have a better chance of catching them by surprise if we just charge in through the main entrance.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Because Harkon’s an arrogant ass,” said Alexien. Serana frowned but nodded, and he continued: “He doesn’t expect us to attack. He expects us to hide and fortify ourselves in a strong location, probably Solitude. Barely any watch is kept. They probably won’t have any idea we’re there until we knock on the front door.”

“As for what else you need to be aware of,” said Serana, “the majority of the court will be like other vampires you’ve fought. The nobles won’t be: they’re stronger and faster, and have some skill with magic. Fortunately, so do we.”

“And Harkon himself?” Sorine asked.

“Is functionally invulnerable,” Serana answered. She let that sink in. “Don’t underestimate him. He’s an arrogant ass, as Alexien said; but he’s also cunning, cruel, and deadly. You probably can’t do more than annoy him. If he joins the fight, leave him to Alexien and me, and try to keep the rest of the court from interfering.”

“ _If_ he joins the fight?” Brynhild repeated.

“He prefers to have others do his dirty work,” said Serana. “It’s possible he won’t enter the fray himself until we’ve already taken care of everyone else. Or maybe not. Don’t be surprised either way. Don’t hesitate to retreat if you have to. And remember, leave him to us.”

“Why you?” asked Brelyna.

Alexien hesitated. He caught Sorine’s glance, and traced a sigil on the table with his finger. Her eyes went wide, and he nodded.

“What am I missing?” Brelyna asked again.

“It’s better if we keep it a surprise,” said Serana. “Just know that Alexien and I both have a few tricks up our sleeve.”

“More detailed plans we’ll have to make later,” said Alexien. “But we have three mages – two heavy-hitters, one for support – a skilled shieldmaiden, and an archer.”

“Arbalist,” Sorine corrected.

“Woman who shoots exploding bolts from a Dwemer crossbow, whatever,” said Alexien. “The point is, we have some flexibility.”

Suddenly Brelyna yawned.

“I agree with her,” said Brynhild.

Sorine nodded. “We should get what sleep we can, before we set out. We got little enough on the way here.”

“There’s a room upstairs with three places,” said Alexien. “If you don’t object, I can stay up and keep watch, since I don’t need the sleep tonight.”

“And I’m going to go out for a while,” said Serana.

“Why?” Brynhild asked.

Serana didn’t answer.

“Ah,” said Sorine. She looked uncomfortable.

“I’m careful,” Serana assured her.

“I’ve never known her to hurt anyone other than me,” said Alexien, “and I was literally asking for it.” Serana jabbed him with an elbow.

“Just… go on, then.”

Serana left them to their rest. She wondered what the odds were one of them would kill another before she got back.

* * *

She crept down one of Solitude’s many alleys. Serana was surprised how active the city remained even in the dead of night; it seemed that there was never a time when people didn’t throng the streets on some business or other, going to and from work or home, carousing in the inns, visiting friends, Divines knew what else. It was rather inconvenient, honestly – but she still liked it.

She had just finished her meal and was heading back to the inn. Suddenly a great clang echoed across the city, and another. One of the temples was ringing its great bell, and it cut through the quiet of the night.

Then there was another, as the ringing was taken up by a second temple, then still another; then all the bells in the city were ringing in uproar. The sound did not die away: it only grew, as they kept on ringing and ringing.

From all the watchposts in the city, horn-blasts filled the air, and shouting. Half-dressed guardsmen missing helmets ran about the streets; soldiers – real Imperial legionaries, not Nord warbands – hastened about in groups, shouting orders, hastily strapping on swords and tying on breastplates. Everyone who was not armed fled indoors.

“The gate!” someone called. “Get the gate!”

Serana stared. Was her father attacking already? Had they not been fast enough?

No… that didn’t feel right. Something else was going on. She trusted Alexien to take care of himself and the others, and snuck off towards the gate.

From inside the city she heard the ring of weapons, and more shouting. It grew louder, as whatever was causing the uproar came closer to the main gate where she was hiding.

Arrows clattered across the ground, the beating of hoofs on pavement. Suddenly three men on horseback turned a corner and came galloping furiously up the street; behind them ran a cohort of Imperial soldiers.

One of the horsemen, Serana recognized, was Jarl Ulfric of Windhelm.

They found the gate closed and drew up in front of it. “Damn it,” one of them cried, “we’re trapped!”

“Be calm,” said Ulfric. “The gods will see us through this.”

He was so close, she could so easily kill him before they even knew she was there… but Serana still didn’t know what was going on, and she waited.

Suddenly the gate creaked open, and a voice from above called down: “Go with Talos, King Ulfric!”

“Nine Divines bless you,” Ulfric called back; then he and the other two horsemen rode away. The gates closed again in the face of the soldiers pursuing them. Nothing dismayed, they spread out at once to secure the gate as if they had rehearsed it a hundred times – which, Serana reflected, they probably had. She saw two of them capture the traitor.

It was time for her to leave.

She found the inn barricaded. Alexien stood in front, sword drawn. He looked relieved to see her, and knocked twice on the door behind him.

“Friendlies, coming in,” he called. There was a scraping sound from within, then the door opened and they went inside.

The common room held every patron who could bear arms. Sorine and Brelyna stood some distance back with clear lines of sight to the door; Brynhild and a tall Orsimer stood directly in front. They pushed a heavy dresser back to block the door once Serana and Alexien were inside.

“What is it? What’s happening?” asked Sorine.

“Is it… them?” asked Brelyna.

Serana shook her head, and glanced at Alexien. “Jarl Ulfric. I don’t know what happened; I saw him on horseback, riding out through the gates, pursued by soldiers. But he got away.”

Alexien grimaced. “That explains it: when I was outside, I could hear them shouting from the place. They were saying… saying the king is dead.”

No one responded.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Serana. “We don’t want to be in the middle of a civil war.”

“All Skyrim’s going to be in the middle of a civil war,” said Sorine. “Gods, and what the Thalmor are going to do…”

“If Ulfric was running, he can’t be attacking now, right?” said Brelyna. “It must just have been an assassination.”

“Brelyna’s right,” said Alexien. “But in case she’s not, we should stay here until morning and protect the inn. In any event we don’t want to try to be seen trying to escape the city by night.”

“If the city is sacked…” Serana said uncertainly.

“The whole population of Windhelm couldn’t sack Solitude,” Alexien insisted. “Not with the Legion here. Whatever Ulfric is planning, it’s not an assault on the capital tonight. Our best bet is to stay down, barricade the doors, and wait until morning. Then we get going as planned.”

Sorine nodded. “We have a job to do. If there’s a civil war, it’ll still be here when we get back.”

* * *

The rest of the night passed without event. The next morning the party walked out the main gate, now watched by a company of legionaries. They were almost alone in leaving; the country people all around by contrast were streaming in, scared and looking for the protection of Solitude’s walls.

A few days later they found themselves, hopefully for the last time, on the bleak northern coast of Haafingar, opposite Castle Volkihar. Come morning they would row across the strait. The last night had been somber, as they all made their final preparations.

Now it was a little before dawn, and Serana sat on a rock by the seashore, listening to the sound of the ocean and staring out across the waves. She knew the island was just north of them, but even from here it couldn’t be seen.

Alexien came and sat next to her, and she took his hand. For a long time they sat in silence, as the waves came in and the sun slowly rose in the east.

“The others will be awake soon,” said Serana.

“They will,” Alexien agreed.

“And we won’t have another moment like this, until… until everything is over.”

“We won’t.”

She turned to him. Several times she opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. Alexien leaned in and gave her a long, slow kiss, and she melted into him. “I know,” he said, when they pulled apart. “I love you too, Serana.”

She stroked his face. “And if you want to hear me say it back, you’d better survive this.”

“You’re evil.”

“Much less so, these days.”

“Serana…”

She shook her head, and looked back towards the sea. “When this is over… we’re going to travel, right? Just the two of us?”

“Just the two of us.”

Serana nodded to herself. “It’ll have been worth it, then.”

“What’ll be worth it?” came a voice. Sorine, walking up and adjusting her armor.

“Everything,” said Serana.

Alexien stood up. “I’ll make sure Brelyna is awake. We should leave soon.”

Some minutes later, Brelyna, Sorine, and Brynhild took a cold breakfast in the grey morning twilight. Alexien and Serana each drank a blood-potion, while the others studiously avoided looking.

Then they approached the small boat that still lay moored on the coast. Serana stepped in, but Sorine raised a hand to stop her.

“Do you mind if… if I say a prayer first?” she asked.

Serana gestured for her to go ahead, but took a step back.

Sorine raised her arms in supplication. “Hear us, Lord Arkay, god of life and of death, of peace and of rest; for without you there is neither breath nor beginning, without you there is no hope nor help for mortal men. We go forth to do battle with the enemies of life, servants of the false death: therefore grant us your aid and your blessing.”

When Sorine had finished speaking, Brynhild raised her arms: “May Stendarr have mercy on us, and on our foes. Help us, Lord; give us your strength, to act on behalf of those who have none.”

Even Brelyna made a wordless gesture of blessing when she thought no one was looking – the sign of Azura, Lady of Twilight.

Serana felt a strange power settle around her. She thought of the Bow, and debated whether she should say a prayer to Auriel; but she decided against it.

“Ready?” Alexien asked from beside her. Serana wondered for a moment whether he had prayed, and if so, to whom.

“Ready,” Sorine answered. The others nodded.

They entered the boat. Serana tapped the side and muttered words of enchantment, and it sped off into the mist.

Everyone was silent and tense. Alexien and Serana sat in the middle of the boat, Sorine and Brelyna towards the back; Brynhild stared forward from the bow.

“So,” asked Brynhild, “how are we going to do this? Who goes in first?”

“Clearly,” said Alexien, “the one who should take point is the only person who bothered to wear armor and carry a shield.”

Brynhild tapped her shield idly and grimaced. “Yeah, but I don’t have any protection against magic.”

“You are accompanied by two and a half extraordinarily powerful wizards (“Hey!” said Brelyna). Even if the whole castle is full to bursting with liches, you’ve probably never in your life been safer from magical attack than you are at this moment.”

“Fair. But only the half (“Hey!” said Brelyna) isn’t a vampire.”

“If you don’t trust a vampire to cover your back, then you’ve made a whole series of bad decisions,” said Serana.

Brynhild sighed, but agreed.

“Then what?” asked Sorine.

“Not that it matters,” said Serana, “because whatever plan we make is going to fall to pieces once the fighting starts, but Alexien and I should go next, on either side of Brynhild and a little behind. We’ll protect against magic and take down anything fighting at range.”

“And anything that gets too close,” added Alexien. Serana noticed his hand twitch in the direction of Dawnbreaker, still strapped to his back. “And behind us, Sorine and Brelyna. Sorine, just shoot anything that moves. Brelyna, focus on wards; but if you see an opening, don’t hesitate. Use fire: vampires _really_ don’t like fire.”

“Wards, fire,” Brelyna repeated, with a determined look. “I can do that.”

“We’re so dead,” muttered Brynhild.

No one answered her. The boat glided on, and the shore was no longer visible.

“You know, I’ve never understood why vampires don’t like fire,” Brelyna said suddenly. Sorine looked up but said nothing; Brynhild still stared straight ahead.

“Well, we’re dead,” said Serana.

“Well, obviously; but I mean, you’re not like desiccated old mummies, right? If anything your skin is kind of... clammy.”

“It has nothing to do with how flammable our bodies are physically,” Serana answered.

Alexien nodded. “It’s the metaphysics of fire. Fire, on a small scale, is a physical manifestation of the sun’s Aedric nature. All undead – even waterlogged corpses that can’t actually burn – shun fire. For that matter, most of the Daedra don’t much like it either.”

“Mehrunes Dagon excepted,” Sorine pointed out.

“Mehrunes Dagon excepted,” Alexien agreed. He looked thoughtful. “At least partially. Dragonfire, supposedly, could burn even the Dremora born of lavaflows in the Deadlands. Which makes sense: Dragons are children of Akatosh, according to myth, so their inborn flame must have been a purer embodiment of the Secret Fire of the Aedra, of which our campfires and conjured flames are but echoes of echoes. There’s a reason the old barriers against Oblivion were called the Dragonfires, and according to the covenant with Akatosh could be lit only by the Dragonborn Emperors.”

Serana gave him a serious look, then turned to the others with a smile. “Ignore him. He likes to pontificate all the more now that he’s immortal and has no concept of the value of time.”

Alexien shrugged. “I’m a wizard. Secret lore is like skooma.”

Brelyna gave a nervous little giggle, and Sorine rolled her eyes. Brynhild alone kept her focus straight ahead.

Serana shifted closer to Alexien. “What are you planning?” she asked, in a whisper too quiet for the others to hear.

“Something catastrophically stupid that I very much hope I don’t have to do.”

“You can use –?”

“No, but I think I know a way to get it.”

The mist had begun to part, and the towers of the castle were coming into view, rising high above them.

“Serana?” Brelyna asked timidly. “I know we have to kill your… your father, no matter what; but what should we do with the rest of the court? If they give us a chance?”

Serana started, and realized a moment later that everyone’s eyes were on her, waiting for her answer. She was silent a long time.

What _should_ they do with the rest of the court? The Dawnguard, Serana knew, would want to kill them all out of hand, just because they were vampires. But to Oblivion with the Dawnguard. She and Alexien (she hoped) were proof that not all vampires were ravening beasts who had to be put down. Those at the castle, though – even those that Harkon hadn’t turned himself had lived long under his influence. She had seen them, lived with them; she knew them, and knew what they were.

“The rot has gone too deep,” she finally said. “We have to burn it out. Spare Ronthil if you can – he’s a Bosmer – and I’ll try to get Garan Marethi to surrender. Kill everyone else. If you see a big arrogant Altmer or a big arrogant Nord – that’s Vingalmo and Orthjolf, my father’s main advisors. They deserve whatever you do to them.”

They all nodded. Alexien put a hand on her shoulder.

“And the thralls?” Sorine asked.

“Can’t be saved,” Serana heard herself answering. “There’s not enough of themselves left in them. They’re already gone; killing them the rest of the way dead will be a mercy.”

The boat suddenly jolted and ran aground on the beach. Serana leapt out at once and strode forwards; the others struggled to keep up with her.

Alexien realized something was wrong at once. They were walking across the stone bridge that led to the Castle’s main gate. But the way was shut: the gate was closed, barred with iron and boarded over with huge planks of oak.

He started to say something to Serana, when one of the gargoyles flanking the path over the bridge sprang to life, roared, and leapt at them. The rest of the party started; Alexien reflexively traced a glyph in the air, and the gargoyle turned back to stone.

“Stendarr preserve,” came Sorine’s voice.

“Dagon take them,” Serana cursed, “they’ve activated the Castle’s defenses.”

“What exactly does that mean?” asked Alexien.

Serana waved an arm. “Besides statues coming to life and killing everything they see? The gate’s closed, and sealed magically. Which means… damn it.”

“What?”

“Remember that worst-case scenario, where the whole court is gathering at the Castle to get ready for an attack? Yeah, that’s happening.”

Alexien’s gaze traveled up the midnight-black spires of the keep. “How many?”

“No idea,” said Serana. “Probably at least fifty vampires in the main hall, waiting to jump us as soon as we open the door. Note that I said _at least_ fifty. Maybe the same number scattered through the rest of the Castle.”

A moment’s stunned silence.

“We can’t fight that,” said Brynhild.

Sorine agreed. “Even if each of us can take down five vampires at once – which I doubt – they’ll still outnumber us two-to-one, just in the main hall. And that’s not counting the thralls.”

“So… what?” asked Brelyna.

“We have to retreat,” Sorine said simply. “Live to fight another day. Fortify Solitude, summon help, make them come to us there.”

“But Solitude’s already in chaos because of Ulfric,” Brelyna pointed out. “Even if we could get someone to listen to us –”

“Do you have a better idea?” Brynhild demanded.

“I –”

“Everyone be quiet,” snapped Alexien. He stared for a moment at the gate, then sighed and took a step forwards.

“Alexien?” Serana asked tentatively.

“Change of plans,” he said, without turning back to face them. “I’m going in first.”

“No, you –”

“I’m going in first,” he repeated, “and you’re all staying back. Especially Serana. Don’t come in until… well, if I’m right, you’ll know it when you see it.”

“What are you doing?” Sorine demanded.

“Something catastrophically stupid. I mean it: everyone stay back for now. Brynhild, stay in front of Serana. Brelyna, ready a ward, just in case.”

“Alexien,” said Serana, “don’t you dare…”

“I’ll see you in a few minutes, Serana.” He took a deep breath, and took another step forwards. “Right. Let’s hope this does what I think it’s going to do.”

Alexien walked forwards alone. The gate loomed up in front of him, high and threatening, and he was close enough now to feel the magic pulsing through it.

He searched through his memory, and found the name he was looking for. He took his stand in front of the gate, breathed deep, and called aloud:

“ _DUR NEH VIIR!”_

He felt the ground shake, then… then his focus was torn away and inwards. He felt it as thoughts, images, emotions, memories that were not his own, flowed into him; he remembered a thousand things he had never done, scenes of triumph and of loss, joy that rose to the skies and despair deep as the abyss; he knew the brightness of the first dawn, and the loneliness of forever.

For a moment he panicked, confused, and couldn’t tell what was him and what wasn’t; then it didn’t matter. It was all his. The rush subsided, and he looked up again, and saw the gate still standing before him.

It was laughable. Did these scurrying creatures think wood and iron could keep him out, their petty attempts at spellcraft hold him? He raised his staff, and spoke a Word; and the gate was blasted in.

He strode into the main hall.

Serana’s estimate had been wrong: the vampires were more than she had predicted. Many more. A fraction of a fraction of their number could have torn Alexien to pieces; however many he struck down, they would remain still a multitude, every one of them deadly. But just for a moment they stood surprised to see him walk in alone, and they hesitated; and that hesitation was their doom.

Alexien knew, somehow, exactly how much what he was about to do would hurt. It didn’t matter. It had to be done, and only he could do it. He raised his staff again, and pointed a hand at the assembled throng, and called up sunfire.

His mind burned; but he did not let the spell go, and poured ever more of his magicka into it, ever more of his will. It was agony – but part of him rejoiced in that pain, rejoiced in its searing purity. He filled the spell to the brink with power, until his mind could barely hold it longer. But it wasn’t enough. He closed his eyes, and looked inside himself, into the knowledge that was new to him but that he had always known; and he found the Dragonfire.

Wrath, burning, melting; the sun beating down on endless sandy wastes and steaming jungles, the font of life and light, glorious and unbearable; the underground forges of the Dwemer, hot enough to liquify metal and temper their secret alloy; the very lifeblood of Nirn bursting from the Red Mountain, a burning black river of destruction; and behind it all, a secret from before the world was, the fire of creation, the beginning and end of all things – all this Alexien knew, as surely and as intimately as he knew his own name, and he felt all of it at once.

Dragonfire and sunfire together he grasped, and spoke the Words, crying in a voice that the world had not heard in untold years:

“ _YOL TOOR SHUL!”_

He was pain; he knew he had to be dead, because nothing alive could hurt so badly – but also he knew exultation, the terrible, ocean-deep ecstasy of power; he was splendor itself, the avatar of dread and majesty, numinous and awful, and no one and nothing withstood him; he was the gods’ own cleansing fire, and he burned out of the very walls a thousand years of wickedness and cruelty.

And then he was just Alexien again. He had fallen to his knees in the middle of a dark hall, leaning heavily on his staff. He gasped for air, and his throat felt like hot coals. Dust and ashes floated around him. Besides these remnant embers and himself, there was no other being in the hall.

Then the air was filled with snarls and hisses. More vampires, more thralls entered the hall by twos and threes, running in from the rest of the keep. When they saw the blasted room they stood aghast a moment, and Alexien would have laughed, if he could breathe. Then they came for him.

One was a mage. Electricity crackled, and a bolt of lightning shot towards him. He raised a shaking hand and tried to cast a ward, but the magic did not come.

A blue-white shield flared to life in front of him. Serana deflected the lightning, and threw back her own spell. A moment later Brynhild stepped in front of him and braced herself; she stopped a charging vampire on her shield, and one smooth sword-stroke took off its head.

“Brelyna – get him out of here!” Serana was shouting.

He saw Sorine lower her crossbow and fire, heard a vampire’s snarl suddenly cut off. Then someone grabbed him under the arms and started to drag him backwards, back towards the bridge, and the day outside.

“Wait,” he managed to cough; “not sunlight.”

Brelyna stopped, cursed, then dragged him over into an alcove. She propped him against a wall and started rummaging frantically in her pack.

He coughed into his sleeve, and noticed a splatter of dark blood. “Oh. That’s not good.”

“I know, now shut it, I need to find…”

Alexien looked over to where Serana, Sorine, and Brynhild were fighting. They were holding their own, and several enemies lay dead around them; but they were outnumbered. Alexien shook his head at Brelyna, and pointed towards them. She ignored him and kept searching. Finally she pulled out a potion bottle and thrust it at him. “Drink this.”

“Won’t help.”

“Drink the damn potion,” she said, tipping the bottle against his lips. He opened his mouth and drank.

The liquid was cool, but had a thick, metallic taste. The pain in his throat eased, and the world seemed to become clear again.

“What was – where did you get that?”

Brelyna’s cheeks turned pink. “I… stole it. From Savos’ private store. I think he made it himself.”

“I’m glad you did.” Alexien rose shakily to his feet.

“Wait, no, hold on. Now that you’re not dying, _what the fuck was that?”_

“Dragonfire.”

“Dragon – what?”

“If you figure it out, I’ll tell you you’re right,” he said. “Now come on, we still have a castle full of vampires to kill.”

Numbers were starting to tell. More than a dozen corpses lay piled in front of Serana and the others; but they had been wounded too, and were growing tired. Serana still moved like a whirlwind of death, but ever slower. As Alexien watched, a vampire tore Brynhild’s shield from her arm, and he heard her bones snap; a bolt from Sorine pierced its throat; but there were always more.

Alexien pointed his staff, but still the magic did not come. He had used too much. Brelyna pressed another potion into his hands, and he recognized the smell of a magicka restorative and drank it in haste; but it would take time to work. For now, he had to do this without spells.

So be it. He grasped Dawnbreaker and drew it out from its sheath.

The blade shone with terrible radiance, and for a moment the eyes of everyone in the room turned towards it, and all was still. Then one vampire, braver or less cautious than the rest, leapt at Alexien. The sword flashed, the vampire fell, and chaos broke out.

The battle surged against Serana, Sorine, and Brynhild, who stood now in a line. Several vampires tried to circle around them, but Brelyna raked their flank with fire. Just as they turned to face her Alexien fell upon them. Dawnbreaker left ruin in its wake, a charred mass of mangled bodies and smoking blood; and the enemy shrank back from its light.

They wavered, and Serana pressed upon them. She stepped forwards out of line, wielding thunder in either hand; she struck and struck again, and all who did not flee fell. Those that did flee met Alexien, and Dawnbreaker.

A moment to breathe. Sorine was wounded, bleeding from a slash across her chest – Alexien pushed away how delicious it smelled – but she was attending Brynhild, whose left arm hung useless. One half of Serana’s face was dry and cracked where some blast of energy had struck her, but she seemed in no immediate danger. Brelyna was unwounded but breathing hard; she had taken several vampires down with fire, and warded off at least one attack that Alexien couldn’t block. Alexien himself could feel his own magicka regenerating under the influence of the potion, but it was frustratingly slow.

“I’m fine,” Brynhild was saying. “I can still hold a sword. You’re the one bleeding.”

“Looks worse than it is,” said Sorine. “Hold still.”

Brynhild spat out a mouthful of blood, and Alexien noticed she was missing a tooth. “Can’t believe we survived that,” she said. “Thank Talos.”

“Thank Alexien,” said Serana, “but do it later. We’re not done yet.”

“There are… more?” Brelyna asked.

Serana waved an arm at the corpses. “My father wasn’t here, nor Vingalmo, nor Orthjolf. Any they’re all more powerful than this lot.”

“If so, then they could easily have overwhelmed us here,” said Sorine. She finished tying Brynhild’s arm in a sling, and Brelyna set to work healing the slash. “The fact that they didn’t means they’re further in, waiting for us. Probably setting up an ambush.”

“Let’s not disappoint them, then,” said Alexien.

Serana gave a nod. “Can you cast again yet?”

“Not yet. Have to do this the hard way.”

“Then I’ll go first,” said Serana. She started walking at once; after a moment the others all followed, not without a sigh.

Serana led the way down a corridor and up a long stone staircase. It was pitch-black, and she had to cast a light for the others to see. So they crept along, straining their eyes to see and their ears to hear any trace of their enemy.

They passed a small room. Suddenly Serana’s hand shot out; there was a startled cry cut off, and she pulled a vampire into the corridor with them and shoved it against the wall, holding it by its throat.

“Hello, Garan,” she said silkily.

“Lady Serana,” he said, in a light voice, as if they were meeting for breakfast and she weren’t choking the unlife from him. He studiously ignored Sorine’s crossbow pointed in his face. “A pleasure, as always. To what do I owe the honor?”

“To the fact that I missed you downstairs. I’m disappointed, Garan; I expected you to fight, not hide.”

“Hide? Nonsense. I am merely… awaiting developments. Far be it from me to intrude myself into a private disagreement between family members.”

Serana gave a hollow smile. “I’d like to know where my father and his advisors are. If you tell me, I’ll let you get back to awaiting developments.”

“Of course,” said Garan. “But first, would you perhaps be so kind as to release me? It’s rather uncomfortable to talk this way.”

“You’re not going to try anything stupid that’ll make me have to kill you?”

“Lady Serana, I’m hurt. You know that my loyalty is to the throne. You are a legitimate claimant to that throne. It’s not my place to insert myself into the _internal_ affairs of the court.”

Serana waved a hand for the others to stand down, and let go of Garan.

He rubbed his throat for a moment, then spoke again: “Your father is in the chapel. I believe that he is making preparations for something, though I don’t know what. Vingalmo and Orthjolf are waiting in the room outside, intending to do violence to your person. It would be _such a shame_ if an accident were to befall them.”

“A shame indeed,” said Serana drily. “Off with you then, Garan. We’ll talk after this is done.”

He gave a bow, and slipped away.

“So where’s this chapel?” asked Alexien.

“Wait,” said Sorine, “are we not going to talk about what just happened?”

“And what would that be?”

“Letting that vampire go?”

Alexien stared at her and raised an eyebrow. After a moment Sorine sighed. “Yeah, I know. Fine.”

Serana pointed down a corridor. “If you’re done, then, the chapel is this way. Get ready. Don’t underestimate my father’s advisors. Alexien, how do you want to do this?”

“I’ll take Orthjolf,” said Alexien. “Brelyna, you’re with me. Take this; I can’t use it right now anyway.”

He handed her his staff. She took it and nodded with determination.

“That leaves the rest of us for Vingalmo.” Serana glanced back at Sorine and Brynhild. “He’s a mage, but he’s also damn quick in hand-to-hand, so be careful. I’ll do what I can to block his magic; you might have to take him down, but stay behind me until there’s an opening.”

Sorine nodded and patted her crossbow; Brynhild adjusted her grip on her sword with her one good hand. Brelyna moved to stand behind Alexien.

So they set off again. Serana led them down another corridor and through a huge pair of double doors. They found themselves in a large chamber all of stone, barrel-ceilinged; in the opposite wall from them was an identical pair of double doors.

In front and facing them stood a tall Nord vampire, and an even taller Altmer. Orthjolf had donned heavy armor of some black metal and wielded a great axe two-handed. Vingalmo wore his usual robes of black, but carried no visible weapon.

Vingalmo stepped forwards. “Lady Serana,” he said, with a mocking bow. “And her _pet._ How charming to see you both again.”

“Step aside,” said Serana. “I won’t say ‘Step aside and we’ll let you live,’ because we both know that’s a lie.”

He laughed. “Your negotiating skills could use some work. It’s a shame you’ll never get the chance.”

“You know, I read your book,” said Alexien. Vingalmo gave him a questioning look, and Alexien went on: “It was shit. I really had to struggle to get to the end, the writing was so bad.”

Vingalmo snarled – and was blasted off his feet by a bolt of thunder from Serana.

“Okay, I admit, I kind of feel bad about that one,” said Alexien. “Taunting a man’s writing is low. I mean, I don’t feel as bad as I did when I was reading your book, because it really was just wretched –”

Vingalmo tore down a stone pillar telekinetically and hurled it at Alexien, who stepped aside. Serana hit him again with thunder; this time he blocked it on a ward, and only just dodged a crossbow bolt from Sorine. Then he turned his focus away from Alexien and entirely towards them.

Orthjolf stepped towards Alexien and Brelyna. “No banter for me, Breton?”

“Nothing for you,” said Alexien. His memory flashed back to when he and Serana had infiltrated the Castle: a child’s mutilated ribcage, discarded like trash, and Serana saying _I bet this was Orthjolf._ Cold anger rose in his chest. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

Orthjolf laughed, a cruel laugh, but full of genuine amusement. “Whatever I did to earn your hatred, I don’t even remember it.”

Alexien bared his teeth. “It was a _child,_ you vile –”

“Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?”

Alexien’s grip tightened on Dawnbreaker. “What they felt, you’ll feel a thousand times over, before I’m done with you.”

Orthjolf shrugged – then charged. He was faster than he should be, for his bulk. The huge axe came swinging down like a comet; Alexien leapt aside just in time, and it smashed through the stone floor. Dawnbreaker darted out, thrusting for Orthjolf’s face; but he recovered and knocked the blade aside with the long haft of the axe.

A flash of fire; Brelyna hit him from the side. He turned to face her, and Alexien slammed into him bodily, knocking him off balance; Brelyna threw another firebolt. Orthjolf snarled and swung the axe at Alexien; he caught the edge on Dawnbreaker, and with his left hand grabbed the haft and twisted. The axe started to come loose in Orthjolf’s grip, but suddenly he surged forward and headbutted Alexien in the face, stunning him; then he stepped back and swung the axe down again.

Brelyna stopped the blade with a ward. Orthjolf snarled. Alexien recovered and went low, and swept his sword out at Orthjolf’s foot; it connected and parted the black armor like paper, and the wound smoked with blood. The vampire screamed.

“One,” said Alexien.

“What in Oblivion are you talking about?”

Alexien lunged with Dawnbreaker; Orthjolf knocked it aside with the haft of his axe and started to swing back, but had to move out of the way of another firebolt from Brelyna.

“How many have you killed?”

“What?”

“How many children have you killed?” Alexien demanded again. “I need to know, so I can keep count.” Orthjolf swung the axe again; Alexien dodged under it, and his blade darted out and cut across Orthjolf’s forearm. “Two.”

“How in Oblivion should I know?” said Orthjolf, through gritted teeth. “As many as I fucking could, that’s how many!”

Another blast of fire from Brelyna – but Orthjolf was ready for it, and pivoted on his foot and launched himself at her. Dawnbreaker flashed and opened a gash on his back, and he stumbled and fell to a knee as Brelyna retreated.

“Three,” said Alexien.

“Will you just _shut up?”_ Orthjolf shouted. He struggled to his feet and whirled on Alexien, and the great axe flashed again. Alexien dodged – but the attack had been a feint, and the haft of the axe came around and struck Alexien in the temple. He fell on his back.

Orthjolf’s armor-clad foot stomped down on Alexien’s wrist, and he lost his grip on the sword. Orthjolf spat in his face.

“I don’t know how many it was, but it was more than fucking _three,_ ” he said. “So it looks like you failed. Any last words?”

“Yeah,” said Alexien. “If you weren’t so damn easy to enrage, you’d remember to look behind you.”

Orthjolf started to laugh – then his eyes widened, and he was engulfed in flame.

Alexien rolled away and retrieved Dawnbreaker. He rose to see Brelyna, wielding his staff with a look of intense concentration on her face.

“Nicely done,” he told her.

Brelyna grinned, but swayed a bit on her feet and had to balance herself on the staff. “Can’t believe he fell for that. I guess immortality doesn’t make you smart?”

“And smart beats strong every time,” said Alexien. “At least, it does when you give a wizard time to overcharge a spell without interruption.”

Brelyna muttered something that sounded like _Villain Clichés 101: An introduction to the oldest tricks in the book._ Alexien gave a laugh and turned to look for the others.

Meanwhile Serana, Sorine, and Brynhild had been fighting Vingalmo, who was proving himself a more talented mage than Serana remembered. It had been too long since she’d seen him fight; she reminded herself angrily that he surely hadn’t been idle the last nine hundred years…

Serana blocked a thunderbolt with a ward, but even so was pushed back several feet. Sorine fired a crossbow bolt over her shoulder; Vingalmo knocked it out of the air with his bare hand, then threw more lightning. Serana blocked again and gritted her teeth.

She reached for her power, to cast another attack – and it wasn’t there. It was like trying to scoop up water with her hand: the tighter she gripped, the more it flowed away through her fingers.

Which meant that Vingalmo was counterspelling her. Well, two could play that; and if they both had their magic locked down, Sorine and Brynhild could put a quick end to this.

She felt for Vingalmo’s aura, a seething red shadow: around it she drew a circle in her mind, and invested it with power; around him she raised a wall, and fortified it with her will; around him she bound reality, and compelled it to be more real, more static; and even as he gathered energy for another strike, she pulled the spell apart.

Vingalmo had just raised a lightning-wreathed hand again, when the magic fizzled and died.

“There’s our chance!” Sorine called. She ran out from behind Serana to the right, firing her crossbow; Brynhild darted to the left, trying to circle around and get into melee range. The crossbow bolt grazed his hip but inflicted no severe wound, and while Sorine was reloading, Vingalmo turned to Serana.

“A cute trick, but not enough!” he said, raising both arms over his head. The circle of Serana’s will around him fluctuated, as he forced different wavelengths of power through it at once; Serana couldn’t adapt the spell quickly enough to counter the disparate energies – Alexien really should be the one doing work like this, damn him for burning through his magicka – and then her binding shattered, and Vingalmo was free.

But – so was she. He’d had to take his focus away from her to break the spell, and she felt the magic flow back to her fingertips. Without giving Vingalmo time to think or gloat she cast lightning.

Vingalmo had hesitated after breaking her spell, not sure which of his three targets to attack first. He had turned to Brynhild – wounded and weakest, and threatening to come close – when Serana’s lightning hit him in the chest, and he stumbled.

Brynhild gave a battlecry and lunged. But the vampire was still too fast: he stepped aside and the sword missed his abdomen, then his hand shot out and struck Brynhild in the face. She dropped the sword and was knocked back.

“No!” Sorine shouted, and fired another bolt.

Vingalmo waved a hand and bent the bolt’s course, and it sped straight into Brynhild’s chest. A look of surprise passed over her face, then faded, and she fell.

“A shame,” Vingalmo said calmly, and turned to face Serana again. “She would have made a decent thrall. And you know I’ve always savored the savage taste of these Nord warrior-women.”

Serana snarled, and cast thunder at him; he deflected it contemptuously. She reached out and telekinetically seized one of the broken pieces of stone lying about the floor and threw it towards him; but it was slow, and he sidestepped it easily. Sorine fired another bolt; he grabbed it out of the air and threw it back at her; it pierced her shoulder, and she gave a gasp and fell to her knees.

“This is getting dull,” said Vingalmo. “I don’t suppose you have anything new to try? If not, I might as well just end this now.”

“Oh, I do have something new for you,” said Serana. He raised an eyebrow, and she felt herself grin. “You should feel honored: I was planning to save this as a surprise for my father.”

Serana dropped her right foot back, raised her left hand, reached for that memory of light and warmth. Auriel’s Bow flared to life, brilliant gold light filled all the room; her right hand drew back the string; and she loosed an arrow that burned with sunfire.

Shock was on Vingalmo’s face. He raised a ward in haste; but it exploded when the arrow struck it, and he was hurled back against the wall, bleeding and burnt. He shook his head and stepped forwards – and noticed too late Serana leaping for him; she gave him a flying kick to the stomach, and he crashed back into the wall.

Serana called up the Bow again and fired another arrow from point-blank range. Vingalmo opened his mouth in terror, but never got the chance to say whatever he had been going to say. The arrow pierced his chest, and his body fell to ash.

Sorine was on her knees over Brynhild, feeling for a pulse and ignoring the bolt in her own shoulder. Serana looked for Alexien, and saw him and Brelyna coming towards her from where they had just felled Orthjolf; she gave them a grim nod, and went to join Sorine with Brynhild.

She was still alive, but only just. She tried to give Serana a nod, but failed. Serana knelt beside her.

“He’s dead,” Serana told her. “We finished him.”

“Worth it.” She coughed.

“I know what you’ll say to this,” said Serana, “but you know I can still save you, if you wanted.”

Brynhild tried to shake her head. “No. Sovngarde.” She coughed again. “Sword. My sword.”

Serana grabbed Brynhild’s sword and put it in her hand.

“Thank you. See you… Shor’s Hall…”

And then she died. Sorine sighed and closed her eyes.

“Talos guide you to your rest and your reward,” Alexien said over her.

Sorine looked up, but said nothing.

“Brelyna, stay here with Sorine,” Alexien started. “Do what you can for her injuries.”

“Wait,” said Brelyna, “where are _you_ going?”

Serana answered: “To face Harkon.”

“Then you’ll need me,” Brelyna insisted. “You can’t go alone!”

“Neither of us is alone,” said Serana.

Alexien nodded. “You need to stay with Sorine. We can’t be sure that there aren’t any enemies still roaming the keep, and she’s in no condition to protect herself alone. Together the two of you can make it. Go back to the entrance, get to the daylight outside, and wait for us. If night falls and we haven’t returned yet, get in the boat and go back to Solitude.”

“But…”

“Do it, Brelyna.”

She bit her lip. “All right. Fine. But you two had better come back, because I’m not leaving until you do.”

Alexien reached out a hand, and she passed his staff back to him.

“Thank you,” he said. “Brelyna, in case I don’t get another chance to say this – I’m proud of you, and thank you for everything. Now go.”

Brelyna nodded, started to say something, closed her mouth; then she and Sorine limped away.

Serana glanced at Alexien. “Ready for this?”

“As ready as I ever will be. And you?”

“I didn’t think I would be – but I am, absolutely. We finally have a chance to end this. It’s all finally going to be over.”

Alexien took a deep breath to steady himself. “I’m looking forward to traveling together, after this.”

“Me too.” Serana looked towards the door to the chapel. “Still planning to use your powers for good – be a healer, cure fevers and broken bones and petty little injuries, all that?”

“After today… I’ve done enough violence for several lifetimes. Healing might make a nice change.”

“After today, I agree with you,” said Serana. Her face set. “But unfortunately today isn’t over yet.”

Alexien nodded. “Then let’s get on with it.”

* * *

The chapel was just _wrong._ Every part of it was wrong. As they entered, Alexien had a moment to sweep his eyes around the room; and he was repelled. The proportions of floor and wall and column were alien and mismatched; there were great stained glass windows, but they were opaque and let in no light, and they depicted scenes of horror – mutilation, betrayal, incest, torture; the very stones, darker than night, were stained with blasphemy. Alexien stepped across the floor, and with each footfall on those stones there sprang into his mind images of things that had happened in that room, that he hoped were only his imagination, but knew were awful truth.

At the opposite end of the chapel, under the windows that were not windows, stood a great fountain of blood, set up like some twisted altar. The smell Alexien found appetizing and disgusting at once; no hunger, no thirst could ever drive him even to sip from that fountain – but if he did, he doubted not that all other taste would be flat and empty in comparison, and only leave him wanting to drink of that repulsive blood all the more deeply.

By the fountain stood Harkon. He seemed to be praying. As they entered he lifted his head, and set down a chalice.

“So,” he said, in a slow, deep voice, as he turned to face them, “my daughter returns to me at long last. I trust that your travels were enjoyable, daughter mine? That your pet has kept you suitably entertained?”

“Is that really what you want to say to me right now?” demanded Serana. “The first thing you said after not seeing me for nine hundred years was to ask after your precious Elder Scroll, and the second was to threaten my mother; and now all you can manage is mockery?”

“What else is there to say? I know why you are here. You’ve taken everything I’ve done for you, and thrown it away on this _creature_ beside you. And why? Because I tolerated your accursed mother when she poured her venom into your ears; I tolerated _this one_ when he dared show himself here uninvited and unwelcome, and was already leading you astray; and I tolerated _you_ despite your centuries of disloyalty, frivolity, and ingratitude.”

“Ingratitude –” Serana spat.

“Ingratitude!” Harkon repeated, and for a moment his aura flared red around him. “Do you still not understand that all that I’ve done, I’ve done for you, and for all our kind? Do you still not understand what the Prophecy would mean for us?”

At that, Serana’s expression of fury turned to scorn, and she laughed a cruel, cutting laugh. If she had laughed at _him_ that way, Alexien thought, his soul would have shriveled and died rather than live under the weight of that disdain.

“All the stock you put in the Prophecy, and you still don’t understand it,” she said.

“And you do?”

“And we do.”

“Then pray enlighten me,” said Harkon, with a mocking smile.

“No,” said Serana. “No, it’s too late for that, _father._ ”

Harkon stared at her a moment, as if that was the first thing she had said that surprised him. But he recovered and turned to Alexien.

“I suppose I have you to thank for turning my daughter against me,” he said.

“You only have yourself to thank for everything,” said Alexien. “And the fact that you can’t see that is why you’re standing here now: your castle broken, your court slain, outnumbered, alone.”

“Because you are ever the valiant hero, and I am the dread villain? I cannot call you ‘mortal’ any longer, but you still are in your heart. You are not one of us. What will you do if you succeed in killing me? Are all the rest of the vampires in Skyrim next? Is Valerica? Is Serana?”

Alexien shook his head in disbelief. “The fact that you can even think that tells me you’ve already lost,” he said. “I would never hurt Serana, no matter what. She’s too important to me.”

“Sentiment,” said Harkon, voice dripping with scorn. “As I said, a mortal you still are. You imagine that these temporary bonds of emotion, these fleeting ties of family, friendship, affection, actually matter, that they actually last, because you see them drag on through months, years, decades. But the vampire is eternal. We live to see all things fade, all bonds break. In the face of forever we learn the meaninglessness of all these transient ties about which mortals cherish such fond and foolish hopes.”

“Thank you, father,” Serana said, “for making it so clear that there’s one more thing I owe Alexien: the revelation of how you really feel about me. I knew it all along – but I never thought I’d hear you say it. I am truly grateful.”

“Enough of this,” said Harkon. “One of you must have the Bow, or neither of you would dare be here. Give it to me.”

“Come and take it,” said Alexien.

Harkon turned and faced him, and did not notice Serana’s grin. “And you think you can stop me, fledgling? I am the eldest of the vampires in Tamriel, the chosen of Lord Molag Bal himself! Who are you to challenge me?”

Serana glanced aside at Alexien. “You can’t let a set-up like that go to waste.”

“I guess not.” Alexien took a step towards Harkon, and drew Dawnbreaker. “I am Alexien de la Roche, _Dovahkiin,_ Dragonborn; I am knower of the unknowable, and dawn-bearer; I am _Qahnaarin_ , the Vanquisher, honor-named by Durnehviir the Dread. You? You’re the _sixth_ scariest thing I’ve seen this month, after two Daedric Princes, a dragon-lich, your wife, and your own fucking daughter.” He raised the staff in his left hand, and jets of flame swirled around it. “But most of all, right now I’m just someone who wants to watch you burn.”

Harkon snarled, his eyes furious – and suddenly the weight of his gaze was unbearable. Alexien felt his knees buckle, felt himself being borne down by an almost physical force, as if Harkon’s will could rule the very gravity of Nirn. He pushed upwards with all his strength, but the overwhelming pressure lessened not at all; he sank ever lower, and his knee touched the floor. He noticed Harkon smiling.

Alexien raised his eyes to Harkon’s, saw there the look of triumph – and realized that this was only a mental attack: powerful, unbelievably realistic, but not real. Illusion magic, he knew how to fight. He took a breath, thought back on his practice with Serana, and raised a wall in his mind, stones of thought mortared with will, and bent all his concentration, all the force of his mind, on stopping Harkon’s assault. And it stopped.

He grit his teeth and started to push back, to play Harkon’s own game against him – but Serana gave a shout, and he snapped to just in time to see a curved blade sweeping towards his neck. He parried with Dawnbreaker, riposted; but Harkon raised a heavy boot and kicked him in the stomach, knocking him back into a wall.

Harkon raised the sword again. Serana hit him with a blast of fire from behind, but it splashed against him like water on a cliff and did no damage. He flicked his left wrist at her and hit her with a wave of kinetic force; Serana crossed her arms in front of her and raised a ward, but was still thrown off balance.

But Harkon had already turned back to Alexien, was already swinging his sword; Alexien dove aside, cast lightning, lunged, parried again, leapt back, threw flame. Harkon blocked all his sword strokes and simply ignored the magic, which struck him like arrows hitting a brick wall.

Fine, so Harkon was immune to magic. That didn’t mean magic was useless.

Harkon shifted his balance to lunge; Alexien waved his staff at the floor, the stone turned the consistency of mud, and Harkon’s foot sank down over the ankle, becoming trapped when the stone resolidified.

Serana saw the opening and charged. She struck Harkon in the temple with the heel of her hand, went to grab his throat – but Harkon seized her wrist, twisted her off balance, and pulled back his sword for a thrust at her heart.

Suddenly he let go her wrist and spun around. Alexien had ripped up one of the flagstones with his staff and hurled it at Harkon’s back; before it struck, Harkon raised a hand, palm out, and the stone broke against an invisible barrier with a flash of crimson light.

But Serana was free. She grabbed his sword-arm, twisted it over her, and threw. She heard the bones in his leg break before his foot tore through the stone, then he went flying, slamming into a wall. Before he could recover she raised both hands and channeled lightning at him.

Harkon raised his left hand again and blocked the thunderbolt. That same red light flared up around him, and this time Alexien sensed the defensive energies, knew that he wasn’t truly immune to magic but had to consciously expend power to counter it. He pointed his staff and joined his spell to Serana’s, and together they sent a barrage of lightning.

For just a moment Harkon wavered, and his knees shook; a constant stream of electricity lashed against his barrier, the thunder was deafening; then his expression turned furious, and he cried aloud, “Enough!”

Crimson energy rolled off him in a wave, and Alexien and Serana staggered as if struck with a blow. The magic dropped from their fingers. Harkon stood, and appeared not at all inconvenienced by his broken leg; he raised his sword and charged at Serana.

“Alexien!” she cried, giving him a significant look. “Use the Bow!”

“Yes,” Harkon sneered, whirling on Alexien – and putting his back to Serana – “use the Bow, if you think it will save you!”

He changed direction and charged Alexien. Alexien pointed his staff and sent another piece of stonework flying at Harkon, which he knocked aside contemptuously; Harkon swung, Alexien parried, feinted to the left, brought Dawnbreaker around in a quick back-cut, but Harkon was too fast; he blocked the sword, and his left fist struck Alexien in the sternum.

Alexien lunged – but Harkon blocked again with his sword, and his hand shot out and grabbed Alexien’s wrist. It tightened painfully, and it was all Alexien could do not to drop Dawnbreaker. Harkon calmly lifted his blade to Alexien’s throat.

“All that sound and fury, all that boasting, and in the end you couldn’t even use Auriel’s Bow,” he said calmly.

“Oh, no, I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” said Alexien. “I never had the Bow.”

Sunlight exploded against Harkon’s back. His aura flared to life, crimson against gold, but it broke up and was blown away like smoke. He staggered and let out a gasp of pain.

Alexien tore his arm free, took a deep breath, and shouted:

“ _SU!”_

His limbs lightened; a sudden vision flashed through his mind – a great hawk, swiftest of all creatures under the sun, darting down like fire from the sky, borne on the gale but faster still, its prey seized in wind-sharp talons before ever it saw its doom coming – and he struck at Harkon.

Now _he_ was the faster. Harkon had not recovered from Serana’s attack before Dawnbreaker drew a line of fire across his torso, and he screamed; Alexien lunged, Harkon was too slow to block, the blade grazed his cheek; he tried to counter, but Alexien had riposted before he even registered the parry; the sword, radiant as morning, darted fore and back, flashed from left and right, darted in, danced away, cut back; and every stroke drew blood.

But Harkon was ancient and fell. He sent forth a surge of power, a wave of raw force, and threw Alexien back. He raised his hand again and seized Alexien’s whole body in a telekinetic grip, and started to crush him.

He dove aside from another arrow of sunlight, and turned to look at Serana.

In her hands she wielded a golden bow. The light of it lit up her face with awful brightness, a brightness that hurt Harkon even to look upon, but Serana did not seem to feel it; and in that brightness she was beautiful and terrible as the dawn.

She drew back another burning arrow, loosed. He sprang away, up the steps to the fountain of blood, and touched the surface. A barrier rose up in front of him, dark and crimson. They could see the wounds from Dawnbreaker closing in front of them, and he grinned.

“Serana!” Alexien called.

She drew back the Bow again. It was harder this time, and the effort cost her something; but another arrow appeared. She fired it. Again it exploded against Harkon’s barrier, again gold and red light flared in conflict; and then Harkon stood unprotected.

Alexien raised his staff and cast a thunderbolt. The lightning struck Harkon full in the chest, and he was blasted off his feet.

Serana released the Bow. Alexien rushed towards Harkon, kicked away his sword, and it clattered across the floor. He raised Dawnbreaker.

“No!” Harkon gasped. His voice was hoarse, but there was still power in it; he locked eyes with Alexien, and he had the strength of despair. Alexien froze.

Harkon reached out, grabbed Alexien’s staff from his hands, and broke it over his knee. Serana threw lightning, but he dodged it.

Then Harkon turned – towards the altar of blood.

“Lord Molag Bal!” he cried. “Give me your strength, to do your will!”

For a second, Alexien thought that whatever he was doing had gone wrong. Harkon’s skin faded to the color of ashes and tightened over his features, and he bent over at the middle as if in pain. Then he felt the power rolling off him, that same sensation from the first time they had ever met, like spiders and rusted chains, like Daedra.

Serana threw a bolt of lightning, but it hit an invisible barrier. “Alexien, _stop him!_ ”

He raised Dawnbreaker, but for some reason he could not strike.

Harkon’s limbs were lengthening; always tall, now he towered over even Serana, and Alexien barely came up to his torso. Arms and legs were too long, taut with muscle; fingers stretched into horrid black talons. His face sharpened, features pointed and batlike, except for the jaw that unhinged like a snake’s, gaping too wide and showing a mouth full of pointed fangs. The muscles on his back rippled, bones cracked, and two leathery wings tore free and unfolded themselves. From Harkon’s throat came a sound between a scream of pain and a shout of triumph, somehow like both the screech of a bat and the roar of a lion.

The monstrosity turned to Alexien. A blast of fire from Serana splashed against it, to no effect. It gave what might have been a smile, open-mouthed, long tongue lolling out and dripping ichor.

 **“** **Behold the power!”** said a voice in Alexien’s head. **“** **So does the Dark Lord favor those worthy to follow him.”**

Alexien raised Dawnbreaker in a fencing stance. “It’s charming. I can’t imagine why all Tamriel doesn’t worship him.”

Suddenly Harkon blurred. Before Alexien could react a clawed fist slammed into the side of his head, and he felt skin tear as he was knocked to the ground. A huge foot came stomping down; he rolled aside and cut at the leg, but Harkon blurred away again, reappeared behind Alexien as he was rising to his feet, struck him in the back.

Serana drew her dagger and lunged. The tip touched Harkon under the rib but did not pierce his flesh, and he backhanded her away. She threw more fire, which Harkon utterly ignored as he advanced on her. He raised both hands; one clenched into a fist, and Serana was seized in bonds of invisible force; the other glowed red, and she felt her lifeforce draining away. She screamed.

 **“** **Give. Me. The Bow!”** he snarled at her.

Alexien charged him from the side, wielding Dawnbreaker in a two-handed grip; he leapt high into the air and came down at Harkon, swinging the sword with all the strength of his body, all the force of gravity behind it. Harkon raised one hand and caught the blade in his bare claws, twisted it out of Alexien’s grip, and threw the sword across the room. His fist backhanded a stunned Alexien in the face.

Serana tore free of the binding and launched herself at Harkon. With one hand she threw lightning, just a feint to distract his attention from her real attack, an open-handed strike, burning white with magefire. At the same time Alexien channeled frost through both hands, just to slow him down.

It worked: Harkon moved to block Serana, too slow, and the heel of her hand struck his shoulder. They heard tendons snap as his arm was torn from its socket; it hung limp. The magic gathered in Serana’s hand blazed forth, and tendrils of flame snaked around his torso.

But he didn’t seem to feel any of it. Harkon threw forward a hand, and a wave of force hurled Serana back into a wall. Alexien watched as his skin knit itself back together; the muscles in his upper torso writhed sickeningly, and the dislocated shoulder reinserted itself.

“Serana!” Alexien called. “It’s time we stopped playing!”

He waved a hand at the floor again, and the stone around Harkon’s feet boiled; but those disgusting wings beat in the air, and he rose a few feet above the ground. Alexien grit his teeth, drew on his rage, gathered flame between both hands; then he sent a ball of sunfire straight at Harkon. Harkon raised a hand, palm out, and the spell fizzled away against a barrier of crimson energy.

But Serana had a few seconds to act. She raised her left arm, reached once more for light and warmth; but it was far away, and she had to stretch herself before she could grasp it. Auriel’s Bow appeared in her hand, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to do this many more times. She had to make this shot count. She drew back the string, took aim, waited until the moment when Harkon raised a shield to block Alexien’s attack; then she loosed.

Harkon turned his barrier against the arrow of light, but it was vain: the arrow burned gold, the crimson energy melted away before it, and it struck Harkon full in the chest.

He was knocked out of the air and fell to his knees, gasping in pain. Serana sent a jet of normal fire at him, just as Alexien cast lightning. Both their spells collided and threw Harkon back across the floor, and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

And yet Harkon stood up. His skin was blackened and charred, with a scar like a lightning bolt stretching over his torso; but even as they watched his wounds began to heal. His breathing returned to normal. His mouth opened in a grin, showing again that lolling tongue, those rows of fangs.

Serana’s heart fell. If even a direct hit from Auriel’s Bow hadn’t killed him…

 **“** **You never had any hope against me,”** she heard her father’s voice saying in her mind. **“** **I am the chosen of Molag Bal, the avatar of his glory! Now, daughter, I will take the false god’s Bow from your corpse, and with it I will end forever the tyranny of the sun!”**

A sudden inspiration struck her. “Alexien!” she called, as if in fear; “We have to get out of here!”

She hoped he understood, or at least trusted her enough to play along. Without waiting to see his or her father’s reaction she raced outside the chapel. She heard Alexien throw another thunderbolt at Harkon then follow right behind her.

In his new form, Harkon couldn’t fit through the doorway. Serana heard the crash of broken stone as he tore a path after them.

They ran. She led away from the main entrance, deeper into the keep. Alexien covered their retreat, and she felt the impact of Harkon’s spells on his barrier, heard the thunder of his counterattacks. The whole castle trembled as Harkon shattered walls and tore doors off hinges to follow them. Several times Serana stopped, and let Alexien race ahead while she fought the rearguard action; but always she took the lead again, and always headed for the center of the castle.

Finally she came to a great gateway choked with rubble. Beyond it lay the inner courtyard.

“Get us through this!” she told Alexien, and turned to face her father.

Harkon saw them cornered, and laughed. “ **The rats have nowhere left to run,”** he said.

“Cornered rats fight the fiercest,” she said, with more bravado than she felt. “Do you really think we’d have come here without a plan?”

He laughed again. **“** **Your plans have all failed. Do you not know death when you see it?”**

“I know it. Only it’s your death I see, not mine. Any last words, father, or should we just get this over with?”

****“Let** it be over. I will do what I should have done centuries ago. Your pet I will kill in front of you, and make you watch. Then –”**

The ground shook. Alexien put forth all his strength, and lifted up the rubble blocking the way. Serana darted past him and he followed, letting the stones fall again and block the path.

The courtyard looked different by day, with the sun overhead. It was still gloomy, still forlorn; but there was strange hopefulness in the light glinting off pools of rainwater, shining through the branches of trees. Serana shuddered, partly from the pain of sunlight, partly because she knew the moment of crisis was come.

Harkon was right behind them; with main force he tore his way through the blockade of rubble, and emerged into the light.

 **“** **The sun will not save you,”** he said, voice dripping with scorn.

“I don’t want to save us,” Serana said. She raised her left hand one final time and called on Auriel’s Bow; she had to exert most of her strength to do it, and knew that she would be able to do this but once more for a time; but still the Bow answered her call. “Just end you.”

Serana drew the string back to her cheek, and an arrow of gold flared to life, all the more brilliant by light of day. She leveled the Bow at her father.

“Auriel,” she muttered, “if you exist – if you ever existed – if you care at all what happens to us – help us now!”

And she raised the bow higher, over her father’s head, and pointed it directly at the sun.

With no idea what it would do, fearful that she might only accomplish her father’s goal for him, but trusting in she knew not what, in desperation and in hope, Serana loosed the arrow.

The brightness of day was as night, compared with that brightness; it was the sun as Serana most dreaded it, radiant with pain, the longing terror that every vampire knew in the depths of their soul. But that pain and that terror were not for her. White light filled all the sky, and it fell upon Harkon like a thunderbolt. Serana shut her eyes tight.

When she could see again, when the brilliance had faded back to normal daylight, she looked for her father.

Harkon had reverted back to his human form. He was on his knees, one hand grasping the earth, the other his heart.

Serana watched, as if in a dream, as Alexien approached him. Harkon looked up at him once, and said something Serana couldn’t hear. Alexien answered nothing. Harkon tried to gesture in Serana’s direction. Hate and fury passed over Alexien’s face, and she felt him drawing in power. She turned away.

“ _YOL!”_

The air cracked like thunder, and there was a high-pitched scream of pain, suddenly cut short. Serana looked again.

She and Alexien stood alone in the courtyard.


	26. Epilogue

After the battle, they had all stayed at the Castle some few days to recover.

Brelyna and Sorine both made it through, and were soon well enough to travel again. Brelyna returned to Winterhold, with many insistent invitations that Alexien and Serana both come visit her again as often as possible.

“And I’m happy to come with you again any time you need me,” she said repeatedly.

Sorine went back to the Dawnguard, from whom she sent news. There _had_ been sporadic vampire attacks on some of the holds, and there had been casualties, but on the whole every assault had been beaten back. Isran conveyed his congratulations and his thanks, and a request for more help: scattered remnants of Harkon’s court still remained in Skyrim, and the Dawnguard intended to track them all down. Serana shook her head, and Alexien threw away the letter.

The civil war, if it could be called that, had entered a lull. Ulfric was back in Windhelm; Elisif, the late king’s widow, had been proclaimed Jarl of Solitude, with the Empire’s backing. Both sides were fortifying their positions, forging alliances, and waiting. It seemed that neither wanted to be first to attack. All eyes were on the Thalmor.

Alexien and Serana decided it was as good a time as any to travel, and hopefully make it out of Skyrim before the uneasy peace fell apart.

Before leaving they had gone once more into the Soul Cairn, and brought back Valerica. She took up residence in the shattered ruins of Castle Volkihar. What she planned to do there, Alexien did not know, and did not want to know; but Serana had drawn her aside, and Valerica had, perhaps reluctantly, consented to whatever her daughter was proposing.

Valerica had even given Alexien a gift: when he was in the courtyard, she led to him a tall horse, grey with a black mane. “This is Arvak,” she said, “a creature of the Soul Cairn. I surmised that this form would be more… acceptable. For you he will bear any burden, travel any distance, obey any command; and if slain, he will answer your call and return to you.”

“This is… thank you,” Alexien had said, with a hasty bow. “This is truly a splendid gift.”

“Do not mistake my meaning,” Valerica had answered, as she handed the horse over. “Debts must be repaid. That is all.” Then she was gone.

Serana kept Auriel’s Bow. It felt too much like a part of herself to give up – and besides, she told Alexien, she didn’t know how to get rid of it even if she wanted to. And she did not want to. Its power recovered in the days after the battle, a fire that filled up an empty place in her soul and warmed her from the inside out.

Alexien, meanwhile, returned Dawnbreaker to Meridia. Serana waited for him outside the temple. When Alexien came back out he was ashen-pale, and refused to talk about what had happened.

The seasons changed, and Serana and Alexien traveled south at a leisurely place. In high summer, when Skyrim was at its most comfortable and most flourishing, every mountainside blanketed with wildflowers and every meadow tall with soft grass, they arrived in Whiterun.

Alexien set up a small clinic in the main square, as he did wherever they stopped, and offered spells of healing and protection to all who needed them. Serana shamelessly played the tourist, and went to explore the famous Dragonsreach and sneak into Jorrvaskr to meet the Companions. After that she learned that the jarl’s court wizard had a respectable library – the only one in the city – and spent her days reclining under the Gildergreen Tree, reading a “borrowed” book.

She came down one evening to meet Alexien in the main square, and found him conversing with a final patient, a grey-headed old farmer. She kept to the side and listened. 

Alexien diagnosed the man’s ailment and offered him a potion, with careful instructions on how much to take when; the man thanked him and handed over a few small coins.

The farmer started to leave, but something stopped him, and he took a closer look at Alexien. “I say, there’s something… strange, about your eyes,” he said.

“I get that a lot in Skyrim. It’s a Breton thing,” said Alexien easily. He leaned in conspiratorially and added in a low voice: “Elven blood, you know.”

“Oh, yes, that makes sense,” said the man, nodding, as if he knew all about elves and their oddities. “Is that why you keep your hood up? Got pointy ears?”

“That’s exactly the reason,” said Alexien. “Not everyone around here is as tolerant and understanding as you are, my good sir.”

The man nodded, thanked Alexien again, and left.

Alexien started packing away his things, and Serana joined him. “The Vampire Healer of Whiterun,” she said with a smirk. “It sounds like a fairy tale.”

“Except in the fairy tale I’d undoubtedly be eating people under cover of healing them.”

“You _are_ eating people. Just not those people.”

“It would be rude to take their gold _and_ their blood.”

“You barely take enough of their gold for it to count. The least they can do is offer you a meal.”

Alexien snorted but didn’t reply, and continued rolling up scrolls and packing away potion bottles. Serana watched him with a smile.

“Really, though, Alexien – I’m proud of you,” she said. “Not just how you’re doing as a vampire. How you’re coming back from losing Winterhold. How despite everything you’re spending your time helping people. It… it really confirms that I was right about you.”

Alexien looked up at her. He started to wave a hand dismissively but stopped himself. “All that – it’s only because I was right about _you,_ Serana.”

They left Whiterun that night. The city was pleasant enough, and they would have been glad to stay there weeks longer. But they were eager to press on and continue their travels.

They planned to head south towards Falkreath, and enjoy a slow walk through its woods and mountains. Then they would turn west and make for Markarth, which Serana had always wanted to see – “Architecturally it’s supposed to be the most unique city in all Skyrim” – and then, perhaps, over the mountains and into High Rock. Alexien had had enough of adventuring, and was ready to go back to Wayrest; and Serana, though she said nothing, couldn’t wait to see his home.

At Riverwood they stopped overnight. One of the locals learned that Alexien was a healer and begged him to come attend his wife, who was having a difficult childbirth. Alexien spent most of the night with them, but in the morning he rejoined Serana and they set off.

Only a few miles out from Riverwood, the husband came riding up after them. He apologized profusely, but his wife had taken a turn for the worse, and would Master Alexien be so kind as to ride back with him and give them his help once more? Alexien promised to be right behind him, and the man went back towards town.

Alexien turned towards Serana. “Looks like I have to go,” he said, with an apologetic smile.

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

“I don’t suppose you want to walk back with me?”

Serana’s gaze followed the road south. “Actually, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go on ahead,” she said. “I’ll be waiting for you at the inn in the next town. I’ve never seen – what did you say its name was, again?”

“Helgen,” said Alexien.


End file.
